Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SAINT GEORGE HANOVER SQUARE BURIAL GROUND BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Tuesday next at Seven o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY, TRADE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Button-hole Machine (Import Duty)

Mr. Fitch: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will remove the import duty from the Reece button-hole machine.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward du Cann): As the hon. Member probably knows, an earlier application for the removal of this duty had to be withdrawn because it was found impracticable to devise a satisfactory definition of the machines concerned. If this problem can now be overcome, I will gladly consider a renewed application.

Mr. Fitch: May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that that is the same sort of reply that I received from one of his predecessors about two years ago? Would not he agree that the present duty is unfair, in that a firm ordering up to four of these machines has to pay import duty, while a firm ordering more than four can get them duty-free? Surely that is discriminating against the small firm, and would not the Minister agree that some practical way should be found out of this difficulty?

Mr. du Cann: I hope so. While noting what the hon. Gentleman has said, I repeat that I am prepared to consider applications for duty remission

on these machines subject to the criterion laid down in the Act of 1958 and to the published conditions. If they can be satisfied, I shall do what I can.

Bideford and Torrington

Mr. P. Browne: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development how many applications his Department has received for grant aid under the Local Employment Acts, 1960 and 1963, since February, 1963, for the development district of Bideford and Torrington; and how many of these applications have been accepted, are pending, or have been refused.

The Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Heath): Fourteen applications for grants under the Local Employment Acts have been received from eight firms. Five of these firms have had their applications approved in principle, and one has been refused. The other two cases are under consideration.

Mr. Browne: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, which is encouraging, may I ask him whether he is aware that we have had the greatest help from his Department both here in London and regionally in our efforts to attract industry? Is my right hon. Friend aware that we still have unemployment figures of 5·5 per cent.? May I hope that these two applications will be speedily agreed in the right direction?

Mr. Heath: I realise the position, and I assure my hon. Friend that the applications will certainly be dealt with speedily.

Electric Cables

Mr. Holt: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what action he proposes to take to end the price leadership in the electric cables industry described in paragraph 541 of the Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries Report of May 1963 on the Electrical Supply Industry, in view of the fact that the system of common prices and allocation of orders operated by the manufacturers of low voltage cable was condemned by the Monopolies Commission in 1952.

Mr. Heath: None, Sir.

Mr. Holt: Is not that a rather extraordinary Answer? Is it not most important that any action which the Government take to ban practices which are considered restrictive should be effective enough to prevent the frustration of those purposes? So many of these things seem to be carried on in spite of the fact that the Government say that they should not be.

Mr. Heath: The Government have no power to prevent a firm from following another firm's prices. Indeed, simply to follow another firm's prices is not a restrictive agreement.

Mr. Holt: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the legislation which is he proposing to bring before the House, he will take this aspect into consideration?

Mr. Heath: I shall certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman said, but if a firm wants to follow the price of some other firm, I do not see how one can say that that is a restrictive agreement.

Imperial Tobacco Company and Gallahers

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in view of Her Majesty's Government's policy on monopolies and restrictive practices, he will now request the Imperial Tobacco Company to divest itself of its holding in Gallahers.

Mr. Heath: I have no reason to think that the undertaking given to my predecessor by the Imperial Tobacco Company not to interfere in the management of Gallahers has not been carried out. I am not therefore proposing to raise the matter again with them.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: While accepting that there has been no interference, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he would agree that it would be encouragement to the Monopolies Commission if one of its recommendations were carried out in full? Is not there also the other aspect, that of the interests of the shareholders of the Imperial Tobacco Company, who do not necessarily want this large holding in another equity?

Mr. Heath: On the last point, I think that it is up to the shareholders of the Imperial Tobacco Company if they want to change the policy of the firm. I have made plain the Government's attitude towards monopolies and restrictive practices and the White Paper will expand on this, but as this agreement was made and has been kept, I do not think that it would be right again to raise this question.

Mr. Jay: If he is to be so extremely ruthless with small retailers, ought not the right hon. Gentleman to avoid the appearance of being tender with these very large combines?

Mr. Heath: There is no question of being tender, but as agreement has been reached and has been adhered to. I do not think it proper to raise this question now.

North-West

Mr. Fitch: asked the Secretary of State for In Industry, Trade and Regional Development what proposals he has for the development of industry in the North-West, arising out of his visit there at the end of last year; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heath: As I told the House on 3rd December, the main result of my visit to the North-West was my decision to set up an interdepartmental group to survey the economic and planning problems of the area. Meanwhile, the benefits of the Local Employment Acts and free depreciation are available for projects in the development districts of the region.

Mr. Fitch: Can the Minister give us a little more detail? Does not he agree that his reply was rather vague? When he is drawing up plans—if he has any—will he bear in mind that we want industry in the North-West not only to counterbalance contracting industry but also to encourage people to migrate to that area?

Mr. Heath: I agree with the hon. Member about that. The first intention is to prevent emigration, and then to persuade people to go into that area. The study group that I have set up is already at work, and I hope to make a statement later about its scope.

Industrial Site, Dalmuir

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what progress has been made in developing the industrial site in Dalmuir, owned by Ingersoll-Rand Ltd.

Mr. Heath: Ingersoll-Rand Ltd. has recently confirmed its intention to develop the industrial site at Dalmuir for the production of heavy machinery; the timing of the development is dependent on the rate of growth of its business.

Mr. Bence: I have been given that answer for three years. The Burgh of Clydebank has several applications for industrial development on the Clyde. I was given a promise that the Board of Trade would repurchase this industrial site from Ingersoll-Rand if the Burgh of Clydebank could find a customer. It has now got one. Will the right hon. Gentleman now arrange for the Board of Trade to repurchase the site?

Mr. Heath: We have recently confirmed the position as stated in my Answer. If the hon. Member has details of a project on this scale for that site perhaps he will let me have them.

Manufactured Goods (Prices)

Mr. Holt: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in view of the widespread price increases throughout British industry, he will introduce legislation to set up a price office, to which all manufacturers with a turnover of over £2 million per year would be obliged to send their price lists for information and publication, which would ensure that swift remedial action in the form of tariff cuts and action against price rings could be taken when necessary.

Mr. du Cann: No Sir.

Mr. Holt: Is not that Answer just as unsatisfactory as the previous one given by the President of the Board of Trade? If the Government are determined effectively to make inroads on restrictive practices, is it not necessary to bring the light of day to bear upon the kind of practices which firms adopt when their restrictive agreements are banned?

Would it not be a good idea to provide that all price lists should be sent to such a price office, for everybody to see and examine?

Mr. du Cann: The hon. Member's suggestion is obviously not the best way of tackling this problem.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my hon. Friend aware that the recent price increases which have taken place in engineering and other industries have been the result of increases in wages—[Interruption.]

Mr. Manuel: Do your homework.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: —and that many people will take note of the new form of authoritarian State which is being introduced by the Labour Party?

Mr. du Cann: In fact, the provisional wholesale price indices for December show that the prices of all manufactured products sold on the home market rose by under 2 per cent. during 1963. It is probably too soon for any price increase which can be attributed to the recent engineering pay increase to be reflected in the price information supplied by the Board of Trade.

Wallpaper (Monopolies Commission's Report)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what action he is taking on the Monopolies Commission Report on the Supply of Wallpaper.

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what action the Government proposed to take following the recommendation of the Monopolies Commission on the supply of wallpaper.

Mr. Oram: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he accepts the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission in respect to the supply of wallpaper; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. Heath: My Department is in touch with Wallpaper Manufacturers Limited to see how far it is prepared to co-operate in giving effect to the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister prepared to leave it to this cartel which supplies four out of every five sheets which are supplied in this country? Should not he make sure that action is taken quickly? In his recommendations relating to the abolition of resale price maintenance, is he proposing to refer this question to yet another tribunal before he acts on it?

Mr. Heath: I have no powers to enforce action at this time. Therefore, the quickest way to secure action is to ask the wallpaper manufacturers to co-operate in carrying out the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Jay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he still has powers to make orders to see that firms carry out the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission? Can he at least assure us that he will take action in this case in a rather shorter time than the 10 or 12 months he took in connection with electrical equipment for motor vehicles?

Mr. Heath: Discussions are already going on with the wallpaper manufacturers.

Scotland (United States and Canadian Firms)

Mr. Lawson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development how many applications have been made by firms in the United States and Canada over the past three months for assistance under the terms of the Local Employment Acts of 1960 and 1963, with a view to their establishing industry in Scotland.

Mr. du Cann: Two such firms have applied in the last three months. In addition several firms with North American connections, already established in Scotland, have applied during the same period.

Mr. Lawson: Is the Minister of State aware that it was being said in Scotland that applications were being made from British and overseas firms at the rate of 30 a week and that there was a backlog of more than 500 such applications, British and overseas? Does not he think that it is high time that he checked up on his Department's dissemination of information, which has certainly raised

false hopes in Scotland as to what is intended?

Mr. du Cann: If the hon. Member will be good enough to send me that evidence I shall be delighted to study it. I am satisfied from personal experience, in the United States in particular, that a good deal of useful work is being done to attract American firms to Scotland. I have seen this work being done on the spot in the United States and I am delighted to say that it is having some success.

Finance Corporation (Deposits)

Sir C. Osborne: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he has studied the case of a finance corporation, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Louth, for which a receiver has just been appointed, which owes its bank £1,087,000, in respect of which a debenture has been in existence since 1954, and which has depositors of £1,475,000 who are likely to get nothing; what action he has taken to stop this firm advertising for deposits and to proect investors; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heath: In accordance with our powers under the Protection of Depositors Act, my Department has already made certain inquiries in the case of a company which, it is now clear from the details which I have received from my hon. Friend, is the company to which he refers. I hope very shortly to be able to say what further action I am in a position to take.

Sir C. Osborne: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for that information, but is it not possible for greater control to be exercised over so-called finance corporations—[interruption.]—and over second-rate lawyers as well? Can greater control be exercised over so-called finance corporations which offer high rates of interest and then subsequently get into the hands of crooks who rob people of their savings? Is it possible to provide better control of this type of so-called finance corporation?

Mr. Heath: I think that it would be unwise of me to comment further on that supplementary question.

Mr. Lipton: Does the right hon. Gentleman's reply mean that for the time being, and for an indefinite period, this company is to be allowed to go on advertising for deposits, to attract investors? Why is not he taking immediate action? Will not there be some time lag between his announcement today and effective action being taken?

Mr. Heath: The time lag will be very short indeed. The information that I have so far is that deposits are not being accepted.

Aircraft (Sales Abroad)

Mr. Edelman: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what assistance he offers in promoting the sales of British aircraft abroad; and whether he is satisfied that the facilities which he has provided for the export of British aircraft are comparable with those provided by the Governments of other countries competing in the same markets.

Mr. du Cann: Exporters can call on the services of the Export Services Branch and the Commercial Relations and Export Department of the Board of Trade, and of commercial officers and service and supply attachés at embassies and High Commissions overseas. The full support of the credit guarantee facilities of the Export Credits Guarantee Department is available. I am satisfield that all these services compare favourably with those provided by other Governments.

Mr. Edelman: Is the Minister aware that the United States Government have ordered their embassies to go all out to help the American aircraft industry and to promote sales of United States aircraft, thus supplementing the aid given by the Export-Import Bank? Will the Minister take steps to ensure that, unlike the case where the air attaché was dropped in Tokyo, at a time when the Trident order negotiations were reaching a most important point, all the resources of our embassies are employed in order to help the British aircraft industry?

Mr. du Cann: The answer to the first part of the hon. Member's supplementary

question is certainly "Yes". Perhaps I may call his attention to the remarks that I made in the Third Reading debate on the Export Guarantees Bill, when I said that it was entirely clear that we did not lose the first Trident order in Japan because we were unable to put up satisfactory credit terms. On credit terms we are as good as the Americans or the French, and we are always ready to match anything which anybody else may provide. As to the cost of credit, this is a complex and difficult matter. If the hon. Member will be good enough to turn up the reference which I have mentioned he will see that I am now looking into this matter myself.

Mr. Snow: Does that answer mean that the hon. Gentleman's Department was consulted by the Foreign Office before it decided to abolish the post of air attaché at Tokio? Is he aware that his Answer, at any rate to a certain extent, defines the whole question of why we lost the Trident order, in comparison with the woolly answer which we received yesterday from the Minister of Aviation?

Mr. du Cann: The point about the air attaché in Tokyo is different from the Question on the Order Paper. I will make inquiries and write to the hon. Gentleman.

Electrical Equipment (Monopolies Commission's Report)

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what further action Her Majesty's Government propose to take following their consideration of the Report of the Monopolies Commission on the Supply of Electrical Equipment for Mechanically Propelled Land Vehicles.

Mr. Heath: I have nothing to add to the Answer given to the right hon. Member on 16th January.

Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman has said that he is still considering the most important point, can he at least tell us when the consideration will end and we shall have some action on this one?

Mr. Heath: Very shortly.

Mr. Stonehouse: In view of the fact that the Monopolies Commission condemned individual R.P.M. in this industry, does the Minister propose to abolish that forthwith or refer it to another tribunal?

Mr. Heath: I have not the power to abolish it forthwith.

Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch Development Districts

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development, what steps he is taking to promote industrial development in the area of Kilsyth, Croy and Tweclar, in view of the decline in coal mining.

Mr. W. Baxter: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what action he proposes to take to bring industry to the Kilsyth and Lennoxtown parts of West Stirlingshire.

Mr. Heath: These areas lie in the Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch development districts. All the benefits of the Local Employment Acts, and free depreciation, are available to new developments there.

Mr. Bence: I had a reply very similar to that 12 years ago, in 1952—and nothing has happened. Is the Minister aware that the miners are going and the villages are becoming depopulated? Let us have some action before this Government go out of office.

Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman's memory must be at fault. These benefits were not in existence 10 years ago.

Mr. Bence: I said a similar Answer.

Mr. Heath: It could not have been a similar answer, because this became a development district in July, 1962, and, at any rate since then has had the advantage of these inducements. We do everything possible to persuade industry to go there.

Mr. Baxter: Is the Minister aware that his Answer will give not satisfaction to the people concerned? Is he aware that even over the last five years in the western part of my constituency 13 businesses have gone out of operation and no industry has come to the area? Will the Minister take up this matter

seriously and see whether he can encourage some industry to come to these smaller towns of West Stirlingshire? Is he aware that these are becoming dormitory areas and depopulated areas, which is lliading to discontent and despair?

Mr. Heath: I will see whether further applicants can be encouraged to go to the area.

Mr. Jay: Does the Minister realise that this was a development area 10 years ago, that it was descheduled by the Government and then rescheduled?

B.O.T.A.C. (General Directions)

Mr. Thorpe: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he will publish details of the general directions given by his Department to the Board of Trade Advisory Committee since 1960 pursuant to Section 4(2) of the Local Employment Act, 1960.

Mr. Heath: The only directions which have been given are dated 28th April, 1960. They were published in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 26th February, 1963 in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan). They are also to be found at page 183 of the Seventh Report from the Estimates Committee for the Session 1962–63.

Mr. Thorpe: In view of that Answer, does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that the Board of Trade advisory committees could better discharge their statutory obligations if the Board of Trade gave general directions as to the criteria on which to base their decisions in granting loans for industry to cure unemployment? Does not this account for the extraordinary decisions which some committees have made in turning down applications in respect of schemes to cure unemployment?

Mr. Heath: I do not think so. The Act gives power to give general directions about terms and conditions of any loan or grant—with the assent of the Treasury—and this is what we have done, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he consults the references which I have given. I would not accept that some of the decisions of B.O.T.A.C. have been extraordinary. I have always


inquired into particular cases which have come to my notice, and I do not accept his condemnation of B.O.T.A.C.

Trade with Saudi Arabia

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development, what steps he is taking to increase trade with Saudi Arabia.

Mr. du Cann: Since the resumption of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia a year ago there has been a commercial officer at the Embassy in Jedda. After a preliminary visit by an officer from the Board of Trade in November, the Council for Middle East Trade sent a mission to Saudi Arabia in December. Its report was published a week ago, and should prove a valuable document for manufacturers considering entering this very promising market. I am inviting the Saudi Minister of Commerce to visit Britain with some senior officials in a few months' time.

Mr. Wall: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Would he not agree that there are special advantages to be drawn from trading with a country which has no internal or external debt and a fully convertible currency? Will he do all he can to publicise the report to which he referred which gives details of the many opportunities open to British manufacturers when trading with Saudi Arabia?

Mr. du Cann: The answer to both questions is, most certainly, "Yes". It is gratifying to note that United Kingdom exports to Saudi Arabia have increased by approximately 50 per cent. over the last three years.

Rotherham

Mr. O'Malley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will make a statement on the discussions he has had regarding long-term employment prospects in the Rotherham area.

Mr. Heath: I am aware that the coal and steel industries provide a substantial proportion of the jobs available in this area; but unemployment is low, and I must give first priority to the needs of the development districts for new industry. I will continue to give sympathetic consideration to applications

for industrial development certificates for suitable new projects in the area.

Mr. O'Malley: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Government are prepared to encourage firms to apply for industrial development certificates? Would he not agree that the present unemployment figures in the Rotherham area are an inadequate criteria on which to base an assessment of the long-term problem? As a matter of urgency, would he designate a regional planning area for Yorkshire so that statistical criteria may be collated, on which a policy to deal with long-term problems could be drawn up.

Mr. Heath: I am giving consideration to the last point. It is necessary to look ahead to see what items are likely to influence the unemployment figure which, as the hon. Member will know, is at present 1·9 per cent. If the hon. Gentleman means will I offer inducements to encourage firms to apply for I.D.C.s, the answer is "No". That must remain for development districts. If firms wish to have I.D.C.s for expansion, I will sympathetically consider that.

Mr. O'Malley: Is the Minister aware that there are many women and girls in the Rotherham area who are not registered for employment because there is no work for women in that area, and will he look at that matter?

Mr. Heath: I will look at that. But the blunt fact is that the unemployment rate there is 1·9 per cent. and there are many development districts with a higher rate of unemployment to which we must induce industry to go.

Resale Price Maintenance

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what discussions he had with the Scottish whisky trade before his announcement of his intention to introduce a Bill on resale price maintenance.

Mr. A. Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what are the names of the organisations representing the retail traders organisations and their representatives which he interviewed prior to making the Government's


announcement on the abolition of Resale Price Maintenance; and how many meetings were held before this announcement was made.

Mr. Heath: Evidence was received from over 70 organisations during the Board of Trade inquiry, including many associations representing retailers and two representing the wines and spirits trade. Evidence from individual manufacturers was also collected. Since the inquiry was confidential, I cannot give further details.

Mr. Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the intolerable strain which has resulted in Scotland because of a "leak" that the price of whisky was to be reduced by 6s. a bottle? Will he inquire who caused this leak? Is he aware that, on the other side, the licensed grocers are protesting to their Members of Parliament that the distillers are calling the Prime Minister a traitor to his class, and others want the money back from the Tory Party funds? Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up this matter?

Mr. Heath: I am afraid the hon. Member did not make plain what was the cause of the strain in his area at the moment. Was it in holding back until prices are reduced, or a misunderstanding about the nature of the leak?

Mr. Stonehonse: In view of the fact that many opponents of R.P.M. are not aware of the arguments in favour of it being abolished, will the right hon. Gentleman consider releasing some details of the investigations he has made in his Department without revealing confidential facts which he does not want to be released?

Mr. Heath: As the evidence was given to the Department on the basis that it would not be published, and was confidential so that the firms and associations felt themselves in those circumstances free to give evidence, I do not think it would be proper to try to extract parts of the information.

Mr. Darling: Would it be possible to publish the Departmental conclusions without the evidence?

Mr. Heath: I think the hon. Member has heard the statement of Government policy, and that is what the Government must give to the House.

Mr. K. Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in preparing his promised legislation covering resale price maintenance, he will have regard to the safeguarding of prices when these are maintained in order to include service to the goods, replacement of defective parts and loss caused by defect which the Consumer Council suggests should be made an obligation on manufacturers.

Mr. Heath: I shall have these considerations in mind in framing my proposals, but the resale price maintenance Bill would not be the appropriate instrument for any amendment of the law relating to guarantees.

Mr. Lewis: Since my right hon. Friend decided upon his legislation for the abolition of resale price maintenance very much upon the basis of what the Consumer Council said, may I ask him to bear in mind what the Council said a fortnight later, namely, that servicing, and replacement of parts by manufacturers is a very important factor? Is he not aware that supermarkets and mini-markets and all the things we now have do not always provide this type of service and that it is desirable that we should retain a few of the shops which do provide such service?

Mr. Heath: Yes, I will certainly bear in mind the point my hon. Friend has made about the recommendation of the Consumer Council. As to the last point, this means that a choice is necessary for the consumer and he must make his own decision.

Mr. Oram: Did not the report of the Consumer Council show that customers are at a considerable disadvantage vis-à-vis manufacturers and retailers in the matter of defects in goods and retailers escaping their liabilities? Since the Secretary of State responded to prodding in respect of hire-purchase legislation and resole price maintenance legislation, can we be encouraged to think that, if we go on prodding him on this matter, we shall get legislation in response to this Consumer Council recommendation?

Mr. Heath: I have not given any verdict or decision about this point. All I have said is that it is not suitable for inclusion in the particular resale prices


Bill. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are working on a programme of consumer protection legislation.

Leather and Imitation Leather Goods

Mr. Thorpe: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will take steps to make it obligatory for all products in which leather and imitations of leather are used, to be clearly identified on the article in question or on a label attached to such article, so that the public may judge between real and artificial leather products.

Mr. Heath: I am considering the Molony Committee's recommendation that the Board of Trade should have powers to require informative labelling for designated goods. In the absence of such powers I cannot make the marking of individual classes of goods obligatory.

Mr. Thorpe: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer, may I ask if he would agree that, if it were possible to have identification of this sort, it would give a much needed stimulus to the leather industry and also protect the consumer from shoddy substitutes?

Mr. Heath: I should not like to make any judgment at the moment about specific items. We have been following the recommendations of the Molony Committee in the order the Committee suggested. We are now dealing with hire-purchase aspects. The next subject will be merchandise marks and after that there will come this question.

Mr. Darling: Would not the measures proposed by the Molony Committee in this regard require very little legislation? Would it not be a good thing to take them out of turn and to deal with this growing problem in view of the substitutes coming on to the market for original things which people think they are buying?

Mr. Heath: Our preliminary conclusion was that the legislation would be quite complicated, but I am quite prepared to have another look at that.

Nitrogen

Mr. Hooson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and

Regional Development if he is aware of the international cartel in nitrogen known as Nitrex S.A. of Zurich; and what information he has as to how many manufacturers of nitrogen in the United Kingdom are members of this cartel.

Mr. du Cann: So far as I am aware no United Kingdom manufacturers of nitrogen are members of this group.

Mr. Hooson: Is not the Minister aware that it is virtually impossible for merchants in this country to buy nitrogen on the Continent below the wholesale prices of manufacturers in this country? Is he aware that a Hampshire merchant has been in touch with the Department pointing out that he wished to buy from Italy but the Italian firm was prevented from selling it through pressure brought by Nitrex S.A.? Is there not evidence that firms are working in this country, as it were, by means of a gentlemen's agreement with Nitrex S.A.?

Mr. du Cann: I am not clear that the facts are as the hon. and learned Member has stated, but in view of his remarks I shall certainly pay close attention to the matter.

Mr. Hooson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he is aware that a firm, the name of which has been sent to him, has entered into an agreement with Norwegian nitrogen manufacturers so that Norwegian nitrogen which now benefits from the European Free Trade Area tariff reductions will not compete with its products in British markets; and whether he will raise the matter with the European Free Trade Area Council in view of the fact that the agreement contravenes article 15 of the European Free Trade Area Convention.

Mr. du Cann: I am not aware that such an agreement exists. If the hon. Member has any evidence of it I shall be glad to consider it.

Mr. Hooson: Is not the Minister aware that the price of Norwegian nitrogen on the world market is £13 per ton c.i.f. European ports? It is impossible to buy that nitrogen in this country because they simply will not sell to this country. Is there not evidence


which ought to be investigated that there is an agreement between nitrogen manufacturers in this country and Norwegian firms which are members of Nitrex S.A. to prevent the import of nitrogen to this country?

Mr. du Cann: The hon. and learned Member may like to know that E.F.T.A. members are about to start a review of the Convention and to consider whether amendments to it are needed.

Mr. Hooson: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that in view of the fact that the high price of fertiliser is an important item of farm costs, and it is important to reduce farm costs, this matter needs investigating immediately? Will he give an undertaking that in the anti-monopoly Bill to be introduced in this House there will be adequate clauses dealing with international cartels?

Mr. du Cann: The hon. and learned Member, with his great experience of the law, will know how very difficult, if not impossible, it is for United Kingdom legislation to control the activities of firms in other countries.

Mr. Jay: If a United Kingdom manufacturer has entered this agreement, would it not be a registrable agreement under the 1956 Act? Therefore, could not the Minister look into it?

Mr. du Cann: I have already said in answer to the first Question on this subject that I am not aware that such an agreement exists.

Shildon and Bishop Auckland

Mr. Boyden: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development (1) in view of the recent evidence submitted to him regarding the increasing difficulties of the urban district council of Shildon in attracting industry to the area as a result of their omission from the growth zone, if he will now include Shildon in that zone;
(2) if, following the evidence presented to him by the Bishop Auckland Urban District Council and his visit to the town, he will now include Bishop Auckland in the north-east growth zone.

Mr. Heath: I have considered the evidence carefully but I am satisfied that,

for reasons which I have already explained to the councils concerned, it would not be right to alter the boundaries of the growth zone.

Mr. Boyden: Will the right hon. Gentleman give one good economic or industrial reason why these two towns should be excluded from the growth zone? How does he justify the many square miles of virgin countryside south of Bishop Auckland and Shildon which are included in the area of growth? Does he really expect anything to grow there other than grass and corn?

Mr. Heath: I do not think I am giving away any secrets. It is known that the hon. Member was present at the discussions I had with these councils, when I had an opportunity of explaining the reasons. He therefore has heard more than one good reason why we are adhering to the boundaries.

Mr. Boyden: On a point of order. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oil Refineries (Development Districts)

Dr. Bray: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what estimate he has made of the present value at 6 per cent. of the benefits under the Local Employment Acts of £10 million spent on plant and machinery in oil refineries in development districts, where full advantage is taken of the free depreciation provisions; and, on the basis of 200 jobs having been created, what is the cost to the Exchequer per job created.

Mr. Heath: This is a hypothetical question which assumes, among other things, that the full standard plant and machinery grants would be payable in respect of an unspecified number of capital-intensive projects. I am not able, therefore, to give the hon. Member the information he is seeking.

Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that even if the standard grants were not paid the value of the free depreciation would mean the cost per job provided was about £5,000, which is about 50 times the cost averaged over the past three years? Is he further aware that


I.C.I. has announced an expenditure of £30 million on capital-intensive projects in development districts which would have gone through anyway? This means more money will be paid to I.C.I. and Shell in free depreciation than has been paid in grants to the whole of England in the past three years.

Mr. Heath: The conclusion of the hon. Member seems to be that the inducements of the 1960 Act and the free depreciation of the Chancellor's Budget should not have been available for capital-intensive projects. If that is his conclusion I do not think his constituents or Tees-side will be pleased.

Mr. Proudfoot: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that people in my constituency welcome this project and that I should like, through my right hon. Friend, to thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) for raising this question as it affects entirely my constituency?

Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that this free depreciation provision is regarded as a grossly inefficient incentive by the industries themselves? Is he aware that they would very much rather have the money spent on training and the renewal of social capital on which their own prosperity depends?

Mr. Heath: I have not had any firm complain to me about arrangements for free depreciation. What I have found is that it is not yet fully understood by firms, and unfortunately it has not yet proved to be the inducement which it ought to be. I hope that with the additional publicity we shall give by means of a pamphlet which is about to come out, it will become more widely known and will lead more firms to development areas.

Shell Refinery, Tees-side

Dr. Bray: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what further industries employing large numbers of people he expects the Shell refinery to attract to Tees-side that have not been attracted there by the petrochemical and plastics complex at Wilton.

Mr. Heath: Shell's decision to build a refinery on Tees-side is welcome

evidence of their confidence in the region's future. I am sure that it will encourage other companies to follow their example, but beyond this I am not prepared to speculate.

Dr. Bray: Is the Secretary of State aware that the products of this refinery have already been available in the area from I.C.I. plants? While this has encouraged some development, there is no reason to believe that development will be more rapid with Shell there also. Is he aware that this is an extremely costly development under the free depreciation provisions and he ought to review the machinery of the Local Employment Act?

Mr. Heath: I do not understand. Why is the hon. Gentleman crabbing this tremendous enterprise? Surely it shows that one of the greatest firms in this country has confidence in Tees-side and the North-East, and it ought to be encouraged and not criticised.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Will my right hon. Friend note that, unlike the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), most people on Tees-side welcome this project with enthusiasm? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that an attempt to measure the long-term effect of a project of this kind in terms of jobs immediately created on the site is totally to misconceive the whole nature of the problem?

Mr. Heath: I agree very fully with my hon. Friend. It will provide 1,000 jobs for the construction of the refinery first, before going on to the regular staff.

Dr. Bray: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the confidence of both Shell and I.C.I. in the future of Tees-side is so great that they had plans to put these projects there in any case before these provisions were put in?

Mr. Heath: I have no information to that effect. The main thing is that they should go there and not be criticised for doing it.

Restrictive Trade Practices Act (Section 25)

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he is aware that his announcement that resale


price maintenance is to be abolished has created uncertainty among manufacturers and traders as to whether Section 25 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act is still enforceable and what early action he is taking to remove these uncertainties.

Mr. Heath: Section 25 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956, remains the law until it is amended or repealed. This Answer should remove any uncertainty on that point.

Mr. Fletcher: Is the Secretary of State aware that, although it still remains the law in many places, it has long ceased to be so regarded, or to be observed? There is mounting confusion among manufacturers, shopkeepers and the public as to whether resale price maintenance is still operative. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us—first, when the Bill will be introduced, and, secondly, when he expects it to become law?

Mr. Heath: It does sometimes happen that laws are not strictly kept, but that does not alter the fact that the law is in existence and can be enforced. I should have thought this was perfectly well known. We shall adhere to the timetable for the Bill which has already been announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House. Obviously I cannot give an indication as to when the House will conclude its deliberations on it.

Regional Development Plans, Wales

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when he will publish the delimitation and designation of the five regional development plans for Wales, and in particular the proposals for the South Wales area.

Mr. Heath: I understand from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs that the areas which the Welsh Office will be examining in collaboration with other Departments are broadly South Wales, West Wales, Mid Wales, North-East Wales and North-West Wales. The South Wales area will include the industrial belt from East of Newport to West of Lianelly.

Mr. McBride: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for answering this Question, first tabled on 17th December? In view of the plans already in existence, has not the Secretary of State sufficient information to formulate his plans now, rather than waiting until 1965? Does he think that this announcement will allay the anxieties of workers and management in industry? Is not this a most dubious agreement procedure, asking the Welsh people to sign a blank contract form, with the details to be filled in by the Government later? Is it not really designed to provide a method of escape for the Government and a platform point for the General Election?

Mr. Heath: I think that the approach we have decided upon is the best one, to do a comprehensive study of South Wales and Mid-Wales as the first two. The hon. Gentleman asked for the general boundaries of the studies. They are as I have described them to him.

Mr. McBride: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

West Stirlingshire

Mr. W. Baxter: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what actior he proposes to take to bring industry to the Bannockburn, Plean, Cowie and Fallin areas of West Stirlingshire.

Mr. Heath: In steering new industry I must give priority to development districts. But in this area I shall give sympathetic consideration to applications for industrial development certificates for projects which could not reasonably be undertaken in a development district.

Mr. Baxter: I thank the Minister for the Answer. May I point out that these areas are not under the ambit of the Local Employment Act notwithstanding the fact that there is no industry whatever in the four villages mentioned in my Question? Is he aware that they have been rebuilt at considerable cost by the county council to meet the requirement of the coal mining industry but that, unfortunately for them and for the Stirling County Council, the coal


mining industry has ceased to exist? Would the Minister seriously consider putting these areas under the ambit of the Local Employment Act so that they may get an advantage, if there is an advantage, in the future?

Mr. Heath: Again, the unemployment rate is lower than the rates in development districts. It is 3·1 per cent. I have said that I will consider sympathetically the provision of I.D.C.s for firms which want to go into the area. But I cannot give an undertaking to include it in a development district.

Sir J. Duncan: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider his Answer, in view of the fact that Scotland should be treated as a whole and an I.D.C. issued to any firm which wishes to go to any part of the country?

Mr. Heath: I know of my hon. Friend's interest in this matter, but I would not go quite so far as him in saying that even in the congested areas of Scotland there should be I.D.C.s. We are pursuing a flexible policy in this regard.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (SPEECH)

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 26th January in London about economic problems represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Wyatt: Does not the Prime Minister remember that on 7th January in his constituency he said this:
There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insoluble and the economic ones are incomprehensible.
As the economic problems are incomprehensible to him, how does he know whether what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on economic problems represents Government policy? How can he square his claim to give straight talking to the public with his criticisms of the economic proposals of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition when he admittedly does not understand the issues involved?

The Prime Minister: The original speech was made after dinner, if I remember rightly. I have read my right hon. Friend's speech, and I agree with it from end to end.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE (TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS) BILL

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister what proposals he has for amending the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1957 to take account of the proposed appointment of new Defence Ministers under the Defence (Transfer of Functions) Bill.

The Prime Minister: No substantive amendment of the Act of 1957 is needed to take account of these appointments. But there are entries in the Second Schedule to that Act which will be rendered obsolete by the new arrangements, These, in common with similar references in other Acts, can be removed in due course by Order in Council under the Defence (Transfer of Functions) Bill.

Mr. Bellenger: Are we to understand that the promise given in Standing Committee by the Minister of Defence to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), that three Ministers of Defence for the individual Services would be appointed, will be included in the Order in Council?

The Prime Minister: I should not like to say what will be included in the Order in Council. I gather that, whatever is put into an Order in Council or whatever is in present legislation, technically these Ministers will be Ministers of State, but they can be given any title and be paid salaries appropriate to their status.

Mr. Shinwell: When the Prime Minister authorised his right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence to give me the assurance and the Standing Committee the assurance that three Deputy Ministers of Defence would be appointed under the Bill, he surely must have known what the implications were? If the right hon. Gentleman discovers that there was no such authority given at the time, will he take steps to amend the Bill or to withdraw it and produce a new one.

The Prime Minister: I do not follow the right hon. Gentleman. They will be deputies, and they will have any status we give them. We can give them any name we like and we can pay them any salary we like.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the Prime Minister seriously saying that the Government can give them any name they like? Is he aware that his right hon. Friend gave an assurance to the Standing Committee, which was accepted unanimously and was to be incorporated either in an Order in Council or in the Bill itself, that there would be appointed in addition to a Secretary of State for Defence three Deputy Ministers of Defence? That was a categorical assurance.

The Prime Minister: That is all right; they will be. Under the present legislation these are technically Ministers of State, but as I have said in my Answer, this special status will drop when the Order in Council is issued.

Oral Answers to Questions — PROPOSED RAILWAY CLOSURES, SCOTLAND

Mr. Ross: asked the Prime Minister (1) if he will make a statement on the discussions he had recently with the delegation representing Scottish interests on the subject of rail closures in Scotland;
(2) if he will make a statement on the co-ordination of the activities of the Minister of Transport and the Secretary of State for Scotland with regard to proposed rail closures in Scotland.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Prime Minister what assurances he gave to the deputation to him making representations against railway closures on 27th January, 1964.

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent talks with representatives of the Scottish Council concerning the probable effects of extensive rail closures on the Scottish economy.

Mr. Milan: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his official meeting on 27th January with representatives of the North of Scotland Transport Conference and

others on the question of rail closures in Scotland.

Mi. Manuel: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement regarding the assurances he gave to the Scottish deputation which met him last week in regard to decisions on the closure of Highland railway lines.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Prime Minister if he will specify the new assurances which he gave to the delegation from the Scottish Council and others on 27th January, regarding the measures which will be taken and the procedure to be followed, and the likely time involved, before the proposed withdrawal of passenger or other railway services in the Highlands will be made effective.

The Prime Minister: With permission, I will answer this Question and Question Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 21 and 24 together. I would refer—

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: On a point of order. To protect the rights of hon. Members and to avoid the Prime Minister using the device of a previous Written Answer on these Questions, which he is obviously going to do, will you please notice, Mr. Speaker, that Questions Nos. 21 and 24 are about specific Highland matters and not on the generalities which the Prime Minister is now trying to answer?

Mr. Speaker: The Questions are as appears on the Order Paper. It is known to the House, from one of my own Rulings and others, that I am not concerned with the question of Ministers answering Questions together.

Mr. MacMillan: In which case, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister to give specific answers to quite different Questions?

The Prime Minister: The Answer I was about to give was this: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply which I gave to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 4th February.

Mr. Ross: Making all due allowance for the tendency of people who go on delegations to see the Prime Minister to mistake courtesy for agreement, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman


is aware that there has been an incredible confusion of claims of concession and departmental denial? Did he, during the course of this meeting, either implicitly or explicitly, give this delegation any reason to believe that there would be a lapse of two to three years between the presentation of the Report of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee's inquiry coming into the hands of the Ministry of Transport and the Minister making his decision?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I told the deputation, as the communiqué after the meeting said, that all considerations would be taken into account by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Transport, but that we must go through the T.U.C.C. procedure.

Dr. Mabon: Is there any substantial difference between now and before the right hon. Gentleman met the deputation in relation to assurances? Can he explain why in the Scotsman and the Daily Record Lord Polwarth, the leader of the deputation, made it clear that the Prime Minister had given a specific assurance about what he called "time to do what must be done," and that Lord Polwarth called the interpretation of this phrase, "No major rail closures for at least two or three years"? Seriously, does the right hon. Gentleman realise quite seriously that any reputation he has for straight talking is now very much in doubt?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says. It has been made quite clear. The chairman of the Scottish Council said that the Council had never said or implied that there would be a three-year stop on every closure in Scotland, and I never gave any such indication. What I said, and repeat, is that every consideration must be taken into account, economic and social. What time that will take I cannot say, but the Minister is obliged to take account of all those considerations.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the Prime Minister aware that if that assurance is worth anything—namely that he will take into account all the social and economic implications involved—it will mean waiting for the regional plans which the Government say they have in

train for the Highlands and other areas? Is he aware that, on the Government's own admission, these reports cannot be produced within the next 18 months to two years? If he is aware of this and if the Prime Minister's assurances, are worth anything at all—and we very much doubt whether they are—the implication must surely be that there must be no railway closures for at least two years?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman continually doubts my assurances I do not know why he goes on asking for them.

Mr. Millan: Is it not rather extraordinary that the members of this delegation, who are not unintelligent men, came away from the meeting with the Prime Minister with the firm impression that the Beeching closures were to be delayed for up to three years? Was that assurance not given by the Prime Minister and, if not, could he give an assurance now that the Beeching programme will not be proceeded with in Scotland until these various investigations into economic and social consequences have been made by the Government?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the delegation came away with no such impression. [Interruption.] The impression they came away with was the right one, which I have given; that we would take the necessary time to look into all the considerations involved in the closure of any railway.

Mr. Manuel: Why did the Prime Minister not give the assurances asked for by the delegation? Is he aware that the Highland local authorities, in connection with rail closures and passenger train withdrawals, in the seven crofter counties estimate that road improvement works would cost about £20 million if these closures take place? If so—and I am sure that the Prime Minister does not doubt the word of these local authorities—will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would take much longer even than three years to provide the necessary road improvement works to allow the closures to take place? Does he not agree that he could have told the delegation that with perfect safety and, at the same time, have had the backing of these seven Highland local authorities?

The Prime Minister: That is no doubt one of the considerations which my right hon. Friends will take into account and about which, no doubt, we shall hear when the Highland Transport Board reports to the Secretary of State.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Tiley: On a point of order. Is not all this tedious repetition, and is it not rather shocking that Question Time should be used in this way?

Mr. Speaker: It is even worse that it should be used to raise points of order which are not points of order.

Mr. Malcolm Macmillan: Would the Prime Minister clarify several points? First, will he give some sort of reasonable time limit for the report on the Highland Plan, on which so much of this is based? Secondly, will he make it quite clear, after all the ballyhoo in the Press, and in spite of Lord Polwarth's statement, that the short answer to the question about any assurances of any kind having been given to this delegation is that no assurances of any kind were given which had not been repeatedly given on the Floor of the House? Thirdly, can he say whether that will be the limit of his reply and assurances to any further delegations on this subject, right up to election time?

The Prime Minister: No assurances were given to the delegation that I have not given time and again in this House. I am thinking of having a gramophone record made to save the time of hon. Members.

Oral Answers to Questions — WELSH AFFAIRS (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. McBride: asked the Prime Minister if he will define the extent of co-ordination between Ministers charged with various responsibilities for Welsh affairs.

The Prime Minister: There is full co-ordination between Ministers charged with responsibilities in Wales. The normal arrangements for co-ordination of the work of different Ministers is reinforced by the particular responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Welsh Affairs for looking after Welsh interests.

Mr. McBride: Is not the Prime Minister aware of the hiatus which occurred between two of his Ministries, those controlled by the Secretary for Industry and Trade and the Minister for Welsh Affairs? Is he aware that when I sought to put down a Question to one Ministry it was transferred to the other and was eventually re-transferred? Does he not think that the time has come to intervene and to define the range and extent of the powers of the Ministers in charge of Welsh Affairs?

The Prime Minister: That is rather a long supplementary question but, in the event, the hon. Member did get his Question to the Minister he wanted. It was a difficult matter to decide but, on the whole, I think that it was right that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State should answer it.

Mr. G. Thomas: Is the Prime Minister aware that Welsh affairs will not be properly dealt with here until we have a Secretary of State for Wales, with a seat in the Cabinet? Is he further aware that the Welsh people are much dissatisfied with the way in which the present system works?

The Prime Minister: I know that arguments have been put forward for a Secretary of State for Wales, and I am well aware of them.

Mr. J. Morris: Would not the Prime Minister agree, from his own personal knowledge, that the Department for Welsh Affairs is a mere piece of window dressing, and the office a mere post office for other Departments?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. K. Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it be possible to make an exception today by giving us an extra quarter of an hour so that we could put to the Prime Minister some Questions on England?

Mr. Speaker: If the House thought fit to change its rules on a nationalistic basis, but not otherwise.

Mr. Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could we have an extra quarter-hour so as to get some Answers from the Prime Minister?

Mr. Speaker: We will get another one, if I do not have points of order.

EDUCATION AND CIVIL SCIENCE (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. CROSSMAN: To ask the Prime Minister whether he will now make a statement on Ministerial responsibility in the field of education.

The Prime Minister: When the Government made their statement on the Robbins Committee Report on Higher Education a decision on the machinery of government for education and civil science was deferred until public opinion should have had opportunity to express itself.
After taking full account of the views that have been expressed, I have concluded that the right course is to have a single Minister with total responsibility over the whole educational field, who should be Secretary of State for Education and Science. Under him, there will be a single Department, but it will include two distinct administrative units and this will give the organisation something of a federal character. Broadly speaking, one unit will be concerned with the schools in England and Wales, and the other with civil science, and, through the University Grants Commission, with institutions of university status. The detailed allocation of work between these two units will be adjusted in the light of experience. The Secretary of State will be supported by two Ministers of State.
There will be no substantial change in the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. Scottish universities will be financed through the University Grants Commission, and will thus be within the sphere of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The Secretary of State for Scotland will continue to be consulted on the appointment of members of the University Grants Commission and on other university matters.
As regards civil science, we shall, in general, follow the recommendations of the Trend Committee on the Organisation of Civil Science. Two new bodies will be formed out of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research—a Science Research Council responsible for supporting research in the universities in

pure and applied science; and a separate agency for Industrial Research and Development to take over the majority of the research stations now managed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and to support industrial research. It is also the intention to form a Natural Resources Research Council.
The detailed scope of these bodies is at present under discussion. These bodies, together with the Medical Research Council and the Agricultural Research Council, will become the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The National Research Development Corporation, which promotes the development and exploitation of inventions, will, however, continue to be associated with the Board of Trade.
There must be close co-operation between the research agencies and the relevant Government Departments, and this will be recognised in the arrangements for appointiing members of the controlling bodies.
Legislation will be required, for instance, to set up the new scientific agencies, but the changes in Ministerial responsibility need not wait. The new Department should begin to function at the start of the new financial year. A more detailed statement will be made nearer that date.
My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council will then become Secretary of State for Education and Science. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Education will become one of the Ministers of State and I have invited him to continue to sit as a member of the Cabinet.

Mr. Crossman: While thanking the Prime Minister for such a long and complex Answer to such an often-postponed Question, may I ask him just three questions on our first impression of his statement? The first is about the D.S.I.R. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government scientists were deeply dismayed by the Trend Report, and made the most urgent representations to his right hon. and learned Friend? Can he say why those representations have been totally disregarded in this recommendation?
Secondly, on the division of Ministerial function, do I understand that the Prime


Minister has entirely accepted the views put from this side, and that there will be two Ministries with two accounting officers, or are there only to be two Ministers of State?
Thirdly, on the question of selection of personalities, after the three-month contest between the "battling twins", why does he feel it necessary to give the prize to the Minister who opposed his solution, and to demote the Minister who stood by the idea of a single Secretary of State?

The Prime Minister: On the question of the division of function of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, we have, after much thought—and this is a matter of debate, of course—thought it much better to separate it into two.
On the question of division of Ministerial function, there will be two accounting officers, so we do accept, in fact, what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have put forward. On the personalities, I do not propose to go into that, except to say that both the Ministers concerned are highly qualified to do any job they are asked to do.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the decision to keep together that part of the universities that deals with research and that part which deals with education will be very greatly welcomed in the universities? Can he give an assurance that this new arrangement will at least, by having the University Grants Committee as a buffer, and the new arrangements resulting from the Trend Committee's Report, preserve the Haldane system?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The answer is that this will preserve the Haldane system. I am obliged to my hon. Friend for making that clear.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Prime Minister aware that it has taken nearly three and a half months for him to reach the conclusion that we put forward in detail on 19th November? It was put forward in this House on 19th November, and was then much barracked by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in so far as any Conservative Minister

is popular in educational spheres it is the present Minister of Education?
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that there will be very great concern about the fact that, after this three-month battle between the two right hon. Gentlemen, he has finally reached this extraordinarily illogical division of functions as between those two Ministers on no other basis, so far as the public is aware, except that of a piece of squalid horse trading last October, when the right hon. Gentleman was trying to persuade his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord President of the Council to join his Administration?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman has been right about the scheme all the time, I do not know what he is complaining about. The reason we took three months is that we had the courtesy to consult outside opinion before making the arrangements.
The answer to the last supplementary question, with its assumption that there has been friction and a battle between my two right hon. Friends, is that I can only assume that the right hon. Gentleman thinks so because that is the practice always on his own Front Bench.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: First, in a point of detail, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is correct that the Atomic Energy Authority will still remain under the new Secretary of State? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great pleasure that his announcement will give to the country that the Agricultural and Medical Research Councils are not to be handed over to the executive Departments for Agriculture and Health, nor the Road Research Laboratory to the Ministry of Transport, as was so foolishly advocated by the Leader of the Opposition in November?

The Prime Minister: The answer to the last part of that question is "Yes" The answer to the first part is also "Yes", because the Atomic Energy Authority will be under the authority of my right hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. Grimond: Is the Prime Minister aware that, quite apart from the personalities, there will be regret that the choice of the new Minister of Education will


appear to have been come to on other than educational grounds?
May I further ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can tell us who will be responsible for the estimates of the need for scientific manpower? This is a matter which is causing considerable concern among universities and among scientists. Can the right hon. Gentleman also tell us whether only one or both Ministers will be of Cabinet rank?

Hon. Members: The Prime Minister said so.

Mr. Bence: No, the right hon. Gentleman did not.

Mr. Grimond: Can the Prime Minister say rather more about the position of the Scottish universities? Is it the position now that the Scottish universities will be administered through one of these two Ministers of State, who, in turn, will be to some extent and for some purposes subordinate to the Minister of Education and Science, or will the Minister of State for this purpose act under the Secretary of State for Scotland?

The Prime Minister: Would the right hon. Gentleman mind repeating the last part of his question? I could not hear it.

Mr. Grimond: I should be glad to repeat it. Would the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific about the position of the Scottish universities? Am I right in thinking that the Scottish universities will come under one of the new Ministers of State and that he, in turn, will come under the general Minister of Education while the rest of Scottish education will remain under the Secretary of State? If so, this would be a change; or is it the intention, at least for some purposes, that the Minister of State will, so to speak, report to the Secretary of State for Scotland?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The situation is as the right hon. Gentleman described it. There will be no change, in effect, in the position of Scottish universities.
To turn to the other part of the supplementary question, it seems to me extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should suggest that my right hon. and learned Friend is not fit for this post. He

has been both Minister of Education in his time and Minister for Science, and now we are combining the two.
As for estimates—and I understood the right hon. Gentleman to be talking about estimates in the sense of calculations—they will be under the overall supervision of my right hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. W. Yates: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us quite understand that the bogus enthusiasm for science on the benches opposite arose only during the Labour Party conference in September? May I ask whether, if the Robbins Report means that there should be more scientific universities, there is to be one in the Midlands? If so, is it to be in the new town of Dawley, in my constituency? Thirdly, which Minister in the Cabinet will be taking the decision?

The Prime Minister: I should like to see that question on the Order Paper.

Dr. King: Is the Prime Minister aware that his decision to override the Robbins Report in this connection and to treat education as a unity will be welcomed by almost everybody in the country? Can he assure the House and the country that the fact that he has not chosen the present Minister of Education to be the first new Minister does not mean that he is giving the schools second place to the universities?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member's question was not a very good one. I think that everybody recognises that my right hon. and learned Friend is fully qualified in every way to take this post.

Miss Herbison: On a point of order. The statement made by the Prime Minister affects the position of Scotland and Scottish universities very much and no Scottish Member from this side of the House has been allowed to ask a question.

Mr. Speaker: I allowed myself to be misled into regarding the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party as a Scottish Member. I will allow the hon. Lady to ask a question if she wants to.

Miss Herbison: Will the Prime Minister tell the House what opinion in Scotland he consulted during the last three months, since he has said that he was doing a courtesy to people by


consulting them? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether his answer to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) means that instead of the present position, where Scottish universities are under a United Kingdom Minister, they will now find themselves under an English Minister?

The Prime Minister: No, sir. The Scottish universities will be under the new Secretary of State. I think that the Scottish universities are perfectly content with this arrangement.

Mr. G. Thomas: Since you have exercised your generosity in your own discretion, Mr. Speaker, and since no Welsh Member was called, may I ask whether you would agree to allow a question from the Welsh point of view?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that it shows, almost in Welsh, how wrong I was to recede last time. We must have regard to our other business. No doubt if the House wants to discuss these things it can do so when there is a Question before the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. H. Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 10TH FEBRUARY—Debate on a Government Motion on the Buchanan and Crowther Reports.
TUESDAY, 11TH FEBRUARY—Remaining stages of the International Development Association Bill, and of the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations Bill [Lords], which, if necessary, will be interrupted at seven o'clock, when the Chairman of Ways and Means has set down opposed Private Business.
Motion on the Industrial Organisation and Development Order.
WEDNESDAY, 12TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Income Tax Management Bill, and of the War Damage Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolutions.
THURSDAY, 13TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Uganda Bill.
Second Reading of the Criminal Appeal Bill [Lords], and Committee stage of the Money Resolution.
Remaining stages of the British Nationality Bill.
FRIDAY, 14TH FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 17TH FEBRUARY—The proposed business will be: Supply [6th Allotted Day]: Committee stage of the Supplementary Estimates, which, if the House agrees, will be taken formally to allow debate on Government expenditure in the field of aviation.

Mr. H. Wilson: The business looks a bit more interesting than some we have had.
Does the Leader of the House still adhere to the timetable for publication of the Bill on resale price maintenance and for getting it through the House in the present Session? Secondly, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the Bill, when it is produced, will deal with price rigging in solicitors' fees and charges by banks and discount houses, estate agents and building societies?

Mr. Lloyd: The answer to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question is that I see no reason to depart from the estimates which I have given before.
As regards the second part, I think that the right hon. Gentleman had better await the Bill and see.

Mr. Farr: Will my right hon. and learned Friend try to find time fairly soon for the House to debate some of the risks attached to the use of certain poisons in agriculture and matters related thereto?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall consider my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Mr. A. Henderson: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say who will answer Questions addressed to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary during their absence in Washington?

Mr. Lloyd: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not be unduly disappointed with the reply. I have been asked to do so.

Sir C. Osborne: Will my right hon. and learned Friend do his best to find time to debate the position in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer finds himself in the N.E.D.C., in view of the fact that a national incomes policy is so necessary but the trade union representatives will not co-operate in forming such a policy while Mr. Frank Cousins is still in the West Indies? May we debate the matter here?

Mr. Lloyd: I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that this is a time of year when there are many opportunities for discussing that type of topic between now and, say, the Budget.

Mr. H. Wilson: Since the Leader of the House thinks that we might debate this matter, does not he agree that we should do so not on the basis of completely distorted views expressed by the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne)? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman arrange for the House of Commons to be given the facts of what has been going on in the N.E.D.C. instead of having to rely on Press leaks in various newspapers?

Mr. Lloyd: I should think that a debate would, of course, take place on a factual basis.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In the light of the very important statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister after Questions, can the Leader of the House say whether we are to have a general debate on what has been announced or whether we are to expect legislation to implement particularly the findings of the Trend Report?

Mr. Lloyd: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stated that there would not be legislation this Session. I think that the question of a debate could be considered through the usual channels.

Mr. Awbery: Does the Leader of the House recall that, 12 months ago, Lord Colville, in another place, introduced a Bill about burial and cremation which was withdrawn on the Motion for Second Reading on an understanding from the Government that a comprehensive Bill would be introduced shortly to deal with the whole problem? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now consider introducing such a Bill,

seeing that we are in the last stages of a dying Government?

Mr. Lloyd: Without accepting the invitation to indulge in dialectics which the hon. Member offered me. I shall consider the point which he makes.

Mr. W. Yates: Will the Leader of the House take into account the fact that eight Members of Parliament and one member of the Cabinet visited South-West Arabia during the Christmas Recess and that four more Members are on their way? In view of this, does not my right hon. and learned Friend think that it is time that the House had an opportunity to debate the matter forth-with?

Mr. Lloyd: Not next week.

Mrs. Hart: Do I understand from the reply of the Leader of the House with reference to the Prime Minister's statement after Questions today that such profound changes can be made in the relationship between Scottish and English government without legislation being needed? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider the necessity for a very early debate on this subject, and also consider the need to have statements of this importance made during the course of ordinary business in order to allow full opportunity to discover the answers to our questions?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot accept what the hon. Lady has just said. I think that the convenience of the House was met by my right hon. Friend answering the Question of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) today. I did not understand that there were to be fundamental changes in the position of Scottish universities.

Sir C. Osborne: Now that the Leader of the Opposition has supported the request that all the facts from the N.E.D.C. should be brought to the House and discussed, will my right hon. and learned Friend consider again my suggestion that the matter should be debated at an early oportunity?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that there are opportunities for debating the kind of topic which my hon. Friend wants to debate.

Mr. Woodburn: In view of the short time available and the difficulty of


eliciting all the facts regarding the changes in education, would it be possible for the Prime Minister to amplify his statement and clear up the great many points outstanding by a public statement on the relation of the different parts of education and the relation between Scotland and England?

Mr. Lloyd: I will convey that suggestion to my right hon. Friend.

Sir S. Summers: My right hon. and learned Friend has announced the proposed business for Monday the 17th, the suggestion being that, if the House took the Supplementary Estimates formally, certain matters would be discussed. In view of the fact that, by that date, the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates on those Supplementary Estimates will not have been published, may we take it that the procedure announced will not debar discussion of those Supplementary Estimates should the House wish to do so?

Mr. Lloyd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I thought it convenient to suggest that they should be taken formally because the Report is not yet available. I gather that it will not be available until about 20th February. After that, there will be opportunities on each specific item to deal with the Report of the Select Committee.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that that is very much the view which we take also, and that there was no intention on our part, in asking for a Motion, to preclude discussion on these very important Supplementary Estimates? We thought that we ought to have the Report of the Estimates Committee first. As far as we are concerned, we do not intend to take any action after Monday week which would in any way limit full discussion of the Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. Lloyd: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wigg: Is the Leader of the House aware that yesterday the Minister of Aviation told the House that, as long ago as last August, Ferranti Ltd. was informed that the Comptroller and Auditor General, as a servant of the Public Accounts Committee, had made

certain enquiries about that firm's relation to contracts in the public service?
Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman regard it as in the highest degree improper that, before the House has had an opportunity of considering the Report, the Minister of Aviation, who himself was concerned in this matter, should appoint a committee of civil servants to inquire into a matter which must concern the House as a whole? Will he provide an opportunity for the House to debate this procedure?

Mr. Lloyd: It is not for me to say what will be in order, but I think that these matters would be in order in the debate on Monday week.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is Leader of the House, not only a member of the Conservative Party. Does not he consider that he has a direct responsibility to the House when its procedures are flouted in this way?

Mr. Lloyd: I wish to preserve the interests of the House, and I think that they are preserved by the fact that there will be a debate in the comparatively near future.

Mr. Zilliacus: In view of the growing anxiety about the situation in Cyprus and its repercussions on East-West relations and relations between N.A.T.O. and the United Nations, could the right hon. and learned Gentleman find time for a debate at an early date on this matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall take that topic into account as a possibility.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposing next week to call for the Writs for the pending by-elections? Is he aware that, in regard to Rutherglen, for example, Scottish Members are receiving letters of protest from publicans and small traders about the actions of the Government? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman intend, during the passage of the Bill on resale price maintenance, that all these electors will have no Members to state their ease in the House of Commons?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman is too old a Parliamentarian to think that the matter of issuing the Writs is for me.

Mr. Loughlin: Will the Leader of the House reconsider his answer about the situation in Aden? Is he aware that I have been trying to get a debate on this subject for some time, that there has been a state of emergency in Aden since 12th December, and that a considerable number of British subjects are being held without trial? Will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider this matter as one of grave urgency and let us have a debate on it next week?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot promise a debate next week, but I shall take into account what the hon. Gentleman says.

Mr. Lipton: Does the Leader of the House recollect that two or three weeks ago he said that the White Paper and the Bill on resale price maintenance would soon be available? The period of two or three weeks is now up. What is he doing about the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I said two, three or four weeks.

CHANNEL TUNNEL

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement.
As a result of studies undertaken jointly, Her Majesty's Government and the French Government consider that the construction of a rail Channel tunnel is technically possible and that in economic terms it would represent a sound investment of the two countries' resources.
The two Governments have, therefore, decided to go ahead with this project. The next step will be to discuss further, in particular, the legal and financial problems involved.
Bearing in mind the very heavy burden of the two countries' existing commitments and the many other competing claims on their national resources, it remains to be decided when and how best the expense involved can be sustained.
At the present stage of the discussions, the two Governments have not yet decided whether there is a rôle—and, if so, in what form—for the participation of private equity capital in the enterprise. It is clearly understood that, whatever happens, the Governments will have to

have full control of any future operating company.
This, together with the fact that private finance would require Government guarantees, must inevitably affect the final decision.

Mr. Strauss: The Minister's statement is, no doubt, a welcome step forward after many years of postponement and delay, but I should like to ask him three questions. First, has the statement been made today because of the impending General Election? Secondly, will legislation be required to put the Government's decision into effect? Thirdly, in view of the fact that no decision has been taken about the legal and financial consequences, and no consideration has yet been given to how or when the necessary money is to be raised, can the Minister say how long it will be before this project is started?

Mr. Marples: First the statement has been made now in agreement with the French. We have been carrying on the negotiations for several months directly with the French Government, as the right hon. Member knows. This timing is convenient to the French and ourselves.
Secondly, as I have said, we have to look at the legal consequences with the French and to consider what sort of corporation should operate the tunnel. Until that is decided it will not be possible to say what legislation will be required.
Finally, the study group said that it would take about six years to build a tunnel. If we decided to go ahead straight away after we had had the geological survey which is necessary technically, the maximum expenditure would not arise for some considerable time. But we should have to discuss this with the French. My difficulty is that this is an agreed statement with the French. It is very difficult at this stage to add much more than I have said in my statement.

Mr. N. Pannell: Since this is a highly controversial question, cutting across party lines, will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the matter will be fully debated in the House, which has never happened up to now, before any commitment is entered into by the Government?

Mr. Marples: It will be some considerable time before a firm commitment can be made, because the technical difficulties are enormous. We have not decided, for instance, whether the tunnel should be bored, or whether it should be an immersed tube. I will convey my hon. Friend's suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

Mr. Holt: Will the Minister publish a White Paper setting out the grounds for the Government's decision? Will he make it clear whether, after preliminary examination by the two Governments, a decision has been taken that it is worth while pursuing further studies of the project, or has a firm decision been made in principle to build?

Mr. Marples: May I read part of my statement again:
The two Governments have, therefore, decided to go ahead with this project.
There are certain technical details to be considered—for instance, as I have said, will there be an immersed tube or a bored tunnel? That decision has to be taken. It cannot be taken until we have had further geological surveys and tests. It cannot be done physically by any contractor. Until this is decided it is not possible to say any more about the scheme, except that we shall go ahead with it if at all possible.

Sir W. Teeling: Does my right hon. Friend realise that at least 137 of us who have put down a Motion on the subject will be delighted that we have got this far? If, within the next six weeks or two months, a decision has not been reached about the underground side of the project, are we likely to see it even started within the next year?

Mr. Marples: I cannot add to my statement. This is not a decision of Her Majesty's Government alone. The French Government are involved and it is very difficult for me to answer such questions until we have had further discussions with the French. My opposite number at the French Ministry of Transport and I are extremely keen that we should start these discussions at once.

Mr. Wigg: The Minister told the House that the Government must keep

control of the company. Does that mean that, in conformity with usual Conservative practice, the Government will subsidise all the losses and then at the appropriate moment, when the project begins to show a profit, it will be handed over to private enterprise?

Mr. Marples: I do not think that that is an exact description of what the Government are doing concerning some of the nationalised industries which were showing a loss. This Conservative Government have shown how they can be improved.

Mr. Webster: Bearing in mind the necessity for financial and legal undertakings, will my right hon. Friend make certain that if consortia are involved in building the tunnel, keeping in mind what has happened over the Concord, adequate escape clauses are put in the contract so that if either party backs down there is adequate compensation?

Mr. Marples: I have had some experience of contractors' contracts. I will try to bring that experience to bear in this matter.

Mr. Shinwell: If no commitment has yet been made, and if all that is intended between Her Majesty's Government and the French Government is that there should be a geological survey, why was it necessary to make a statement to the House? May not this be the explanation, that the shares have been flopping on the Stock Exchange recently? Will they go up tomorrow as a result of this statement?

Mr. Marples: I have no idea what will happen to the shares. What has happened is that we have decided that the tunnel is technically possible and economically desirable. Therefore, in principle, the two Governments are committed to the project if they can get over the building and operating difficulties and can come to an agreeable arrangement. But there are many more problems to solve. We have decided that, in principle, this is a good thing.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Oreder. We must get on with our business.

BILL PRESENTED

HAIRDRESSERS (REGISTRATION)

Bill to provide for the registration of hairdressers and to regulate the practice of hairdressing; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Partridge; supported by Mr. John Barter, Lady Gammans, Mrs. Eveline Hill, Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith, and Sir Barnett Janner; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 28th February, and to be printed. [Bill 80.]

COMMONWEALTH TRADE, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND COMMONWEALTH LINKS

4.8 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): I beg to move,
That this House approves the action taken by Her Majesty's Government to promote the development of the Commonwealth through the provision of technical assistance and development aid on an increasing scale, the strengthening of educational and cultural links, and the pursuit, in co-operation with other Commonwealth countries, of the policies for expanding trade endorsed at the meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council in May 1963, and welcomes the intention of Her Majesty's Government to press forward vigorously with these and other measures to reinforce the bonds between the Governments and peoples of the Commonwealth.
The House will recall the passage in the Queen's Speech in which Her Majesty's Government stated their intention to strengthen the link between Britain and the Commonwealth countries. I thought that it would be useful to have a debate now in which my right hon. Friend could give the House a comprehensive picture of how we propose to develop and expand that link and in which hon. Members could contribute any ideas which might help towards this end.
I think that the debate is timely in two ways. Everyone is conscious of the dangers of the horizontal division of the world into the Southern half, broadly speaking, which is poor, and the Northern half, which is rich, dangers which will become much more acute should that division harden, as it could, on racial lines. The modern Commonwealth, if it can make itself into a working co-operative society, is the best guarantee against any such development, which would be a horror worse than anything the world has seen.
The debate is also timely because recent events overseas are fresh in our minds. I hope that we have demonstrated beyond doubt and with complete conviction to all the Commonwealth countries how much we in this country care for the Commonwealth and its newest members and their independence. When we gave independence to our Colonial Territories, we meant them to keep it, and we mean them to keep


it and to be given a fair chance to preserve their independence, their own identity and their own way of life.
We have responded five times in the last two weeks to appeals from Commonwealth partners whose life and independence have been threatened. In Malaysia, we are there to prevent a Commonwealth country being dismembered by subversion and by force. In Cyprus, we are there to prevent a very unhappy people suffering from civil war in the island and to try to prevent Greece and Turkey from being drawn into a war. In Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, we are there in response to requests from their Governments to prevent illegal take-overs by mutinous elements who would overthrow the elected Governments who are only a few months, or, indeed, a few weeks, old.
I hope that if there were any doubts anywhere in the Commonwealth about Britain's motives towards the newer Commonwealth countries they have been removed by the rapid decisions which we took to help them and by the efficient executon of those decisions by our Armed Forces, who were able to be in their countries to assist them in a matter of hours. I hope, therefore, that the Commonwealth countries understand that when the chips are down, the Commonwealth can rely on Britain.
I should like to point a contrast. Hon. Members may have seen—and I hope that the Leader of the Opposition, who is to follow me, saw this, too—a statement by Mr. Chou En-lai on leaving Africa, where he was the guest of independent African countries, countries independent in their own right, members of the United Nations. He said, on leaving the Continent:
Revolutionary prospects are excellent throughout the whole Continent of Africa.
I cannot imagine a more cynical declaration and I hope that the people of Africa, in particular the Commonwealth countries of Africa and the new countries in Africa who are now represented in the United Nations, will realise from now on who their real friends are.
I should like our African Commonwealth partners to know—and this, I think, would be the feeling of the whole House—that we want to take our troops out of their countries as soon as they feel that it is safe for us to do so. We

have no other motive to be there except to help them to keep order. We look forward to discussing with them ways and means of helping them in any way they can suggest which would help them to maintain stable conditions in their countries for the future.
It is, therefore, against such a background and facing such a future that we believe that the Commonwealth should come together to forge all the political, economic and social links that it can. I should like to consider for a few moments under various headings the various possibilities open to the Commonwealth and to Britain as a leading partner in it.
I take, first, trade and development. If we are to find the right machinery so that inter-Commonwealth trade can expand to the maximum in volume and in value have to start by recognising that the economic needs of the Commonwealth have changed very much from the time of the Ottawa Conference, or, indeed, from the time of the Montreal Conference in 1957. At the time of the Ottawa Conference, the number of members of the Commonwealth was small and we were able to draw at that time the clear distinction between, on the one hand, Commonwealth countries that produced food and raw materials for the British market—and the British market at that time was far the greatest market in which they were interested. I am happy to say that it still is. At that time, however, they thought of practically no other markets. We, on the other hand, exported the manufactured goods that the producers of raw materials and food needed.
One other thing which we should bear in mind and which is worth noting is that the Ottawa agreements were an answer to conditions of depression and slump. Conditions now are very different. Many of the Commonwealth countries have become industrialised and it is the legitimate ambition of almost every Commonwealth country so to do. The change has accounted to some extent for the erosion of our preferences.
The world economic situation is different. The economic problems of today arise from the problems of surpluses of food produced in the industrial countries and the emphasis, instead of being upon slump and depression, is


upon the conscious organisation and expansion of multilateral trade. There is no possible complaint from this country that any Commonwealth country should seek to industrialise itself—certainly not—or that the Commonwealth countries should seek markets elsewhere, as Australia is seeking them in Japan. It is natural and right that they should do so.
It is, on our side, natural and right that Britain, faced with surpluses of food and keeping an open market, should seek to secure reasonable living conditions for her own farmers so as to be able to keep stability of price and a share of the growth of the market for our own producers. On either side, therefore, whether one takes industrialisation in Commonwealth countries or the condition of our country, in which we want to maintain a prospering agriculture, there cannot be any complaints either from us or from them. Therefore, what we have to do if we have to live up to the spirit of the Montreal Declaration, in which I remember—because I was at the conference—we all pledged ourselves to add to the volume and the value of Commonwealth trade and consciously to try to provide each other with the maximum opportunities of trade in each other's markets.
In considering how best to do that, we have to recognise certain things. We have to recognise that the Commonwealth countries do not want any sort of closed shop arrangement. It has been emphasised at every meeting at which I have been present, as Commonwealth Secretary and, during the last three years, with Commonwealth Prime Ministers, that Commonwealth countries wish to retain complete freedom to make bilateral agreements with other countries and, indeed, to trade in a worldwide market. That is why, during the Common Market negotiations last year, we tried so hard to preserve the interests of all the Commonwealth countries in what we judged to be one of the most expanding and important markets of the world.
Those negotiations failed; they are no longer a live issue. Therefore, we have to get together with all our Commonwealth partners to see what we can make

of the next opportunity, which is the Kennedy Round, and to see whether we can continue with our Commonwealth partners to make the largest possible cuts in external tariffs. The Commonwealth countries look, in particular, to success in the Kennedy Round, because every Commonwealth country sees in the success of the Kennedy Round negotiations the best chance for increasing the volume and value of Commonwealth trade. To prepare for the Kennedy Round we shall use the machinery of the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council.
When, therefore, we are considering how to increase the volume and value of inter-Commonwealth trade and how to increase British exports to Commonwealth countries, there are two questions one must try to answer. The first is whether any new machinery is necessary to stimulate either process. I think that the House is broadly familiar with the present set-up. There is the Commonwealth Economic Committee, which sits in Marlborough House, is financed by the whole Commonwealth and has as chairman a member drawn from a Commonwealth country. Until recently the Chairman was the late Mr. Ikramullah. That Committee assesses and makes available information about Commonwealth resources and opportunities for development in different Commonwealth countries. We would like to see this service increasingly used. Indeed, it has been increasingly used in recent years.
At the Montreal Economic Conference, when I was there with Lord Amory, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, we put forward a proposal for a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, with a secretariat. I thought that a good idea then and I still think it a good idea, and we have returned to it several times. But the furthest that the Commonwealth countries have been able to go was in a communiquéafter the meeting last September, in which they said they would examine this and similar propositions.
Up to now, the Commonwealth countries have always insisted on the machinery being consultative and not in any way executive. Therefore, the present machinery that we have and which, unless there is a change in attitude in the Commonwealth, will remain, is the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council, which meets twice a year at official


level and once a year at ministerial level. Of course, it can be used more often at either level should the situation so require.
We should not underestimate the value of these meetings. Nevertheless, the machinery remains consultative and the idea of an Economic Development Council, with a secretariat, cannot really take shape unless there is more enthusiasm for it from the other Commonwealth countries. Until there is evidence of that, little progress can be made. Her Majesty's Government put that proposal forward and we will accept it or any variant of it should the other Commonwealth countries come to the conclusion that such an idea would be worth pursuing.
My right hon. Friend will speak in more detail about the salesmanship of British goods in Commonwealth countries, but it is worth remembering now that the modern Commonwealth is not one market but many, each differing a great deal from the other. Our experience so far shows that the best results are gained by a concentration of effort on one country or on one group of countries with similar requirements.
For instance, we are now in the middle of an 18-month campaign being run jointly by Government and industry in Australia, and the chambers of commerce have also reorganised themselves and are very active with their Australian opposite numbers. The Canadian Minister of Trade is coming here to see my right hon. Friend and they will discuss the possibility of a similar operation to try to increase Anglo-Canadian trade and we will very much have an eye on the Federal Centenary in 1965.
My hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Board of Trade has just returned from starting off a similar operation in the Caribbean. In West Africa, there are, I think, good opportunities for increased trade and in this and other areas of the Commonwealth we think that the most effective way to stimulate interest is by using and assisting the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce. Again, that body has reorganised itself for this purpose so that it will be lit to meet the needs of the modern Commonwealth, which is now world wide.
I can, therefore, at least give the pledge that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the President of the Board a Trade will put their whole drive behind such operations to try to increase our share of Commonwealth trade, and that I myself shall not for one moment lose sight of this, because it is immensely important that we should pursue it with the utmost energy.

Mr. Harold Wilson: What have the Government done?

The Prime Minister: I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.
It is tempting to think in terms of institutionalising the Commonwealth, but that can be overdone. The main strength of the links between the Commonwealth countries is probably outside the institutions. We are willing to consider any new organisation which will get results, but we think that the most intensive trade drive is best conducted in partnership between industry and the Government working on agreed plans in the different Commonwealth regions.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman is not announcing any change at all in Government machinery?

The Prime Minister: We have the Commonwealth Economic Committee and the Consultative Council and we have made the proposal that these should be turned into an Economic Development Council, with a secretariat. That has not so far received support from other Commonwealth countries. I think that our export trade is best conducted as I have described.

Mr. E. Shinwell: The Prime Minister speaks of the need for a drive by the Board of Trade and the Commonwealth Relations Office, and that we would applaud and encourage. But what is the use of talking about a drive unless we consider it jointly with other Commonwealth countries? It should be done not unilaterally, but multilaterally.

The Prime Minister: The multilateral consideration of all these matters takes place twice a year at official level and at least once a year at ministerial level, and this gives opportunity to review and give new direction, if necessary, to any effort being made. But the


particular drive about which I am talking is into individual markets like Australia or Canada, or groups of markets like those presented by West Africa and the West Indies.
Commodity agreements are very important in the Commonwealth context.

Mr. H. Wilson: Hear, hear.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman applauds and agrees. The United Kingdom is a party to three agreements—the Tin, Sugar and International Wheat Agreements—and we would like to see more, but there is no one solution, as the right hon. Gentleman knows well from his own experience. For instance, he knows the difficulties of reaching a rubber agreement.
We have always been anxious to see such an agreement, but synthetic rubber production has so far defeated all opportunities and chances of getting one. We are in touch with Commonwealth countries about this matter and it will be discussed at the United Nations Conference on Trade shortly. We will help other Commonwealth countries to run commodity agreements if we possibly can.
I should like now to turn to the other links between Britain and the Commonwealth, and in doing so I can completely disprove the rather vague generalities of the Opposition Amendment, in which right hon. Gentlemen opposite condemn the Government for doing so little, as they put it. I take, first, investment, which is the great need of the developing Commonwealth countries. There is a very creditable story to tell. Private investment in Commonwealth countries is running at £150 million a year. Under the Montreal Conference system of Commonwealth loans—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues know about this—since 1957 we have committed £300 million to 14 Commonwealth countries. British aid to Commonwealth countries is running at £120 million a year, and we have put £80 million of international funds at their disposal in five years. We have supported the recent proposal that the activities and the funds of the International Development Association should be increased, and this is a good thing.
Our ability to do more in all these loans and investments and credits and aid depends directly on our ability as a country to increase our earnings and keep our prices competitive. They are now competitive and there should be a good opportunity of increasing our national wealth. If that is so, we can apply more to these activities in the Commonwealth. My only other comment about investment is that there must be a response from the Commonwealth countries, who must create a climate of confidence. Otherwise, the investment will go elsewhere.
I now turn to technical assistance, one of the most effective ways in which Britain can assist the Commonwealth countries. Under the various technical assistance schemes, we now have 18,000 officers in 39 Commonwealth countries, and these officers are assisted in one way or another by the British Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "What do they do?"] They give every kind of technical assistance—health, education, agriculture and engineering, and so on. I can tell the hon. Member that in 1962, the last year for which I have figures, 1,637 new appointments were made and, for the benefit of the hon. Member I will break them up and tell him, because he is evidently interested, what they were. Of these appointments, 542 went into education, 254 into engineering, 219 into health and 97 into agriculture. This total of 18,000, and the annual increase which we are making, is a significant contribution to Commonwealth co-operation.
I now turn to technical co-operation. The House may know that there are 42,000 students from Commonwealth countries in our universities and colleges and that about 5,000 of them are assisted in one way or another by British Government funds. At the Montreal Conference, in 1957, we started the Commonwealth Scholarships Plan, which is working very well, and 1,000 scholars have held awards in this country alone since then. Each year, 400 teachers from developing Commonwealth countries are given training here, and, in spite of our own shortage, last year 600 teachers went to Commonwealth countries for the same purpose of training teachers for these developing countries.
The Commonwealth Education Conference meets again this year in Montreal and the United Kingdom delegation there will put forward proposals for the expansion of and improvements in that scheme. There are several ways in which it could be improved and extended. I cannot give them to the House now, because we want to make them to the conference when it assembles. The scheme has already been of enormous assistance to the Commonwealth, as I have shown, and it was British initiative at the time of which we can be justly proud.
The House knows that there are many voluntary organisations operating in the Commonwealth and, in particular, that these voluntary associations send young men and women overseas. Young men and women from this country are very anxious to give service in this way in the under-developed or developing countries and this year 800 volunteers are going abroad, assisted by the Government through the voluntary associations. The Government have decided that this number should be increased because of the great advantage to the receiving countries, ourselves and to the young people who go. My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Technical Co-operation will be making a statement very shortly on the scale and scope of the organisation as we see it of these voluntary services in the years ahead. Meanwhile, I am very glad to know, and the House will be glad to know, that the Duke of Edinburgh has agreed to be associated with this movement.
There is also the way in which Britain can project herself in Commonwealth countries. I have always taken a great interest in this and when I was Commonwealth Secretary we were able to help a great deal in this way. With my right hon. Friends, I have decided that additional resources should be made available for the British information services in Commonwealth countries. There will be a considerable expansion and an increase of expenditure of £1¼ million in 1964–65.
The things we have in mind in particular are to improve and extend the teaching of English, using the latest techniques, for we believe that English ought to be the language of communication for the world in future; increasing

the overseas Press service; and the supply of books, which is now making rapid progress but which ought to be extended. We also intend, and I am sure that this is right, a greatly increased use of television in Commonwealth countries. I am certain that it is necessary to improve upon what the B.B.C. and I.T.A. are now able to do in Commonwealth countries.
Then there are the professions and the great number of professional contracts between this country and the Commonwealth. I obviously cannot enumerate them today and I will say only that they ought to be encouraged in every possible way. The House will remember that we were able to confer Privy Councillorships on New Zealand and Australian judges making them eligible to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There is to be a third Commonwealth and Empire Law Convention in 1965 and the Lord Chancellor is to lead and field—if that is the right word—a very strong team. That might be the occasion on which the conference could well reconsider the proposal for a Commonwealth Court, which has been considered before and which would be immensely valuable.
I cannot end a speech on Commonwealth links without a reference to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Hon. Members on both sides of the House know how much that does to assist closer relations with Commonwealth countries. We were able to give additional help to the Association last year and the Government intend to continue to assist it.
I have made a rather longer speech than I usually do, because I wanted to give the facts of the progress which has been made in maintaining and developing Commonwealth links which will completely dispose of and disprove the vague charges in the Amendment. I cannot believe that after what I have said the right hon. Gentleman can move that Amendment with very much heart in him. He and his hon. Friends removed a Motion on the Commonwealth from the Order Paper the other day and did not put it hack, so I thought that we had better stimulate them into showing a little more interest in the Commonwealth than they do.
I hope that I have said enough to show that we are acting both in the


spirit and letter of the sentence on Commonwealth development which was used in the Gracious Speech from the Throne.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
regrets the continuing failure of Her Majesty's Government to take any constructive steps for the expansion of Commonwealth trade; deplores the damage done to economic relations with the Commonwealth by recent Government policies; and calls on Her Majesty's Ministers to prepare, as a matter of urgency, an effective plan for the development of Commonwealth production and trade".
Having listened to the Prime Minister's speech, no words of mine could be more eloquent in support of our Amendment than the ones to which we have just listened. I am bound to say that we are ourselves to some extent at fault here, because when we put into our Amendment words about asking the Government "… to prepare, as a matter of urgency …" we did not realise sufficiently, perhaps, until we heard the right hon. Gentleman, that the Government have no sense of urgency at all in this matter.
For an inspiring and challenging subject such as this is—and we have had some very challenging and inspiring debates about this in past years—the right hon. Gentleman's speech was completely flat and dispirited. So far as I could tell, he said only three things: first, that there had been some Privy Councillorships for judges in Australia and New Zealand; and we welcome it; secondly, that there were to be improved relations between our chambers of commerce and the Commonwealth chambers of commerce, and thirdly, that there would be increased provision for technical aid and the exchange of young people, teachers and others, with the Commonwealth. On that, we very much welcome the announcement that has been made of the highly distinguished patronage that this scheme is to have. Most of us read about it in the Press this morning, but that does not in any way diminish our pleasure that His Royal Highness is to head the scheme. Had we been consulted about this—and it was quite incorrectly stated in

the Press that we had—the only point we would have made is that, if His Royal Highness is to preside over it, it would have been fitting that we should have had a much more imaginative and dynamic scheme and not the tuppenny ha'penny one which the right hon. Gentleman has just announced.
The right hon. Gentleman showed by his speech—and here he has been to some extent consistent—that he had not much hope of increasing Commonwealth trade; he gave up the ghost years ago. Before I deal with some of the facts of the Commonwealth trade situation which he failed to present to the House, I would remind him of some words that he uttered in another place two and a half years ago, on 21st June, 1961, in a debate on the Commonwealth and the Common Market. It will be remembered by the House that at that time the then Prime Minister kept telling us that the Cabinet had not taken any decision about entering into the Common Market.
That was not taken until 31st July, but the then Foreign Secretary had made up his own mind. He was out on his own. I should like to quote a few words to show the faint praise in the past with which he has examined the possibilities of Commonwealth trade:
Therefore, my Lords, on this economic side of the problem,"—
it will be understood that I am quoting—
which we are discussing, if we are to maintain our standard of living and consumption—and, of course, the ability of the United Kingdom citizen to consume has a direct impact on Commonwealth trade—and if we are to be in a position to export the capital for which the Commonwealth is hungry today, then we must ask ourselves—and the Commonwealth, too, must join in asking this question most seriously—whether we can afford to be excluded from this European market which is expanding so rapidly and offering so many opportunities.
The right hon. Gentleman then went on to discuss the change which has taken place in the nature of Commonwealth trade, a point which he made again this afternoon. He said:
… a study of the trends and prospects leads me to the conclusion that we should be very unwise to turn our backs on the European Market, which is showing so much vitality Because even if we succeed in expanding Commonwealth trade, we shall want the additional earnings that we could earn in European markets if we are to fulfil our duty to the Commonwealth … Therefore, I would conclude


that while we should maximise our Commonwealth trade in every way we can—and I would commend to my Commonwealth colleagues and partners that they should study again the results of the Montreal Conference—at the same time, we should increase our earnings in Europe. It would be difficult to do that unless we were inside the Community."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 21st June, 1961; Vol. 232, c. 624 and 626.]
The right hon. Gentleman's argument at that time—and I believe that it is still at the back of his mind—is that we were not going to get very much out of increased Commonwealth trade and that, for the reasons that he gave and the careful analysis that he gave in another place, we had better hopes in the Common Market, and if we were there we should be able to do more for the Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted extensively from a speech which seems to be very consistent with what I have said today. I would just mention that I do not see what he is getting at. I said that we wanted to maximise Commonwealth trade as far as we possibly could.

Mr. Wilson: I said that I thought that the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made then was consistent with the speech which he made today. That was the whole point that I was trying to make. At that time, he was extremely defeatist about Commonwealth trade, and he was very defeatist about it today. At that time, his argument was that we could not do very much unless we were in the Common Market, and of course I must inform the right hon. Gentleman that we did not get into the Common Market. Despite the fact of the Government's capitulation on issue after issue affecting our ability to maintain imports from the Commonwealth—despite that—we did not get in.
I propose to return to the Common Market issue, because I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not continue to evade certain questions which I have put to him recently on this subject.
First, let us talk about the record. Our position on Commonwealth trade is on the record. It is on the record in Government and it is on the record in Opposition. Hon. Members opposite sometimes said during the Common Market debate that the Labour Party's support of Commonwealth trade was of recent origin. I refute that. I refute

it by reference to our own record in Government, from 1945 to 1951, when Commonwealth trade as a proportion of our total trade was at an all-time record; and this did not happen by accident. It happened through purposively planned long-term contracts with Commonwealth countries. I refute it again by oar refusal to sacrifice Commonwealth preferences. I myself, in April, 1951 at the Torquay Tariff Conference, broke up that Conference at three o'clock in the morning on one issue—our refusal to give way to the American demand to dismantle Commonwealth preferences.
At the same time I stated on behalf of His Majesty's then Government that if G.A.T.T., which was then an interim agreement and due to disappear, was to become permanent, we should insist on removing the clause about new or extended preferences. It was also the Labour Government, through the mouth of Sir Stafford Cripps and Ernest Bevin and others, that publicly announced our willingness to enter a free trade area for the Commonwealth, and equally support of Commonwealth trade has been our consistent policy in over 12 years of opposition. It was we who opposed the Government's surrender to the clamorous demands they were facing for the restoration of speculative commodity markets when they scrapped the long-term contracts which had done so much for Commonwealth trade.
It was we who over this period—not over the last few months—called for international commodity agreements which we as a Government had made a central feature of the Havana Charter. And when the Government consistently rejected the idea of international commodity agreements—and they were rejected with monotonous regularity—and they were still voting against commodity agreements at Geneva as recently as January, 1962—when this was happening, I would refer hon. Members to the attacks that we were making on them. I do not want to go too far back over past speeches, but I would refer the right hon. Gentleman, because I know he is interested in this subject, to look at the debate as long ago as 3rd February, 1953, 11 years ago. It was on that occasion that we put forward from this Box a comprehensive plan for Commonwealth trade, Commonwealth


development and commodity agreements; a plan that was turned down by the Government because they were more interested in commodity speculation.
Again, I refer to our defence of the Commonwealth interest throughout the Common Market negotiations when right hon. Gentleman opposite—and we have made this statement before—were, quite honestly, breaking pledges which had been solemnly given to this House and to the electorate about Commonwealth trade.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would always put Commonwealth preference before joining the Common Market at any stage in the future? Does he realise that that would mean that a Labour Government could never join Europe if there ever were to be one?

Mr. Wilson: I shall deal with the Common Market position at the end, and perhaps when I have dealt with it I might put the same question to the right hon. Gentleman and see what his answer is. I shall deal with the question of preferences.
Despite that diversion, I shall not be distracted from reminding the House that in successive debates on the Common Market—the right hon. Gentleman was not here but he can read HANSARD—on 7th-8th November, 1952, I quoted in full the particular pledges given by the then Prime Minister, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the present Minister of Defence, over all the years that there would be no interference with Commonwealth trade. Those pledges are very much on the record. I do not want to weary the House by repeating them today, but if anyone denies that they were made I have them here ready to read them again.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Kennedy Round and its vital importance for the Commonwealth. I agree very sincerley indeed with thet right hon. Gentleman, and during all the Common Market negotiations we kept on saying that this was the thing the Government should be aware of. We said that the Lord Privy Seal's hand would be much strengthened if they did not feel in Europe that we had to get in at all costs. We said that instead of the picture that

was being built up of a Common Market including Britain on one side of the table and the United States on the other, why should not we look forward, if the Common Market negotiations became intolerable, as they did, to a situation where we had Britain, the United States, the Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. on one side of the table and the Six on the other? But right hon. Gentlemen were in such a rush to get into the Common Market at all costs that they rejected that. This is all on the record, and I do not want to weary the House by quoting debates and what we said and the Government's rejection of what we said, but in the debate of 11th February last year, after the Brussels breakdown, we stated clearly our line about the Commonwealth and about the Kennedy Round. Therefore, from 1945, nearly 20 years ago, we at least can claim a consistent record in this matter.
I still have not quite understood the right hon. Gentleman's motive in this afternoon's performance—whether it was to try to restore his party's tattered Commonwealth image or to get up and announce a conversion. There was not much sign of conversion. We do not need to come to the Box and announce a conversion. Our consistency over 19 years in Government and opposition is a sufficient test of our sincerity.
But let us now look at the figures. If hon. Gentlemen opposite want to snigger about Commonwealth trade, let them snigger at the figures. The Government's Motion begins with the words "Commonwealth trade". We thought that we might hear something about it from the right hon. Gentleman, but we heard so very little. I thought that he might have looked at the figures and given them to the House. I shall do so instead. Prewar our imports from the Commonwealth were 35 per cent. of our total trade. Under a Labour Government, as a result of deliberate planning, they rose to 44 per cent. By 1962 they had fallen to 31 per cent. That was under the right hon. Gentlemen opposite. If we consider exports to the Commonwealth, we see that before the war 35 per cent. of our total exports were to the Commonwealth. Under a Labour Government, 44 per cent. of our exports were to the Commonwealth. In 1962 they had fallen to 31 per cent., and last year, 1963, they fell to 30 per cent.
Of course, the Government have always excused themselves with the argument that from the trade point of view the Commonwealth is a declining asset, that there is an inevitable, inexorable, secular, downward trend. That was the theme of the Prime Minister's speech to which I referred. It was certainly the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the debate of August 1961 on the Government's decision to seek entry into the E.E.C. The decline in Commonwealth trade, the then President of the Board of Trade, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, said was due to what he called historical reasons.
What were those historical reasons? One, of course, was the then President of the Board of Trade and his predecessors. Another was the then Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and his predecessors, and of course, as the Prime Minister reminded us, he himself was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations for about five years, I think it was from 1955 to 1960, and he might like to know—perhaps he did know at the time and has forgotten—that during that period imports from the Commonwealth as a percentage of total imports fell from 43 per cent. to 36 per cent. That happened in the five years when he was charged with the stewardship of Commonwealth relations. He might like to know that over that period the total imports of this country rose by £680 million, while imports from the Commonwealth actually fell by £22 million—a pretty proud record!
This doctrine of the inevitability of Commonwealth decline has become part of the tribal mythology of the party opposite. The argument—though I do not think that it would deceive anybody who studies the figures—is that the Commonwealth—whether the developing countries or the advanced countries—is making such progress in manufactures that we cannot hope to sell manufactured goods—even developmental capital—there any more, and so we must concentrate on Europe and the United States, whose manufacturing industries are far more developed than those of the Commonwealth.
If it is true that the growth of indigenous industries in the Commonwealth makes it impossible to increase our trade there, why is it that other industrial

countries, the United States, Germany, Japan and Sweden, have had such spectacular successes in Commonwealth markets in the past 12 years? Does the fault lie with the Commonwealth, or with ourselves? Why has our trade with the Commonwealth shown this comparative decline? What are these historical factors? I think that there are two. First, the Government's action, or failure to take act on, both in overseas trade policy—that was never mentioned this afternoon—and in their external economic policy; secondly, and with a few honourable exceptions, the mediocre record of wide sectors of British industry in the matter of seizing opportunities that are there and which more enterprising and vigorous manufacturers from other countries have seized despite the preferential advantages that we enjoy, even today.
I dislike wearying the House with figures, but I felt that in preparing his speech the right hon. Gentleman had not given a great deal of study to the relevant statistics. One did not see evidence that he had spent many hours on it, so I hope that the House will bear with me while I go through the figures with him. From 1953 to 1962 total Commonwealth imports—that is all Commonwealth countries excluding the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa the last-named I have excluded throughout—from all countries over the past nine years has risen from £7,608 million to £11,102 million, an increase of 46 per cent.; that is, the total of imports coiling into all Commonwealth countries, other than Britain, has risen by 46 per cent., so there has been a rapidly rising market. But their imports from the United Kingdom rose only from £1,076 million to £1,208 million—an increase of only 12 per cent., despite preferences.
Put in another way—while the imports of our Commonwealth partners have risen in total, over those nine years, by nearly £3,500 million, their imports from us have risen only by £132 million. We have, in fact, achieved one-fourtieth of this large increase.

Mr. John Harvey: We were there already.

Mr. Wilson: It is no use saying that we were there already.
Let us take the figures for each country. Only in Hong Kong have we maintained our share of the export market. In Canada, where some effort has been made as part of the dollar drive, imports from all sources rose by 36 per cent., and from Britain by 20 per cent.; Australia's imports from all sources rose by 75 per cent. and from us by 8 per cent.; Ghana's imports from all sources rose by 62 per cent., and from us they dropped by 1 per cent.; India's imports from all sources rose by 85 per cent. and from us by only 2 per cent.; Malaya and Singapore's imports from all sources rose by 43 per cent. and from us by 12 per cent.; New Zealand's imports from ail sources rose by 42 per cent., and from us by 8 per cent.; Nigeria's imports from all sources rose by 87 per cent., and from us by 17 per cent., and Pakistan's imports from all sources rose by 101 per cent. and from us by 31 per cent.
Hon. Members may say that perhaps they were importing raw materials. In that case, let us take manufactured goods alone. Here I will take two separate periods—1954–60 and 1961–62. In the period from 1954–60 Commonwealth imports of manufactured goods from all sources of production rose by 50 per cent.—by half—and from us by only 13 per cent. In 1961–62—the last year for which figures are available—Commonwealth imports from all countries rose by 5·4 per cent., whereas from Britain they were down by 5·1 per cent.
If we take all the main groups of exports—chemicals, textiles, metals and miscellaneous metal manufactures, non-electric machinery, electric machinery, transport equipment and "other manufactures"—in every group, taking the period 1954–60 or the period 1961–62, our increase is less than that of all the other countries and, in most cases, very much less. Some of these are in sectors of industry where not long ago we led the world. I have the figures. They were published by the right hon. Gentleman's Department in a very interesting survey last September.
Taking all the separate figures for particular types of engineering equipment, we find an appalling comparison between our own export record and those

of most other exporters to the Commonwealth.

Mr. J. Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman has said that he does not want to worry the House with figures. He should guard against misleading the House with figures. Will he address himself to this question: he suggested that in India 80 per cent. of the increase in trade has gone to other countries. Will he also tell the House how much of the fixed investment in India, made in years gone by, is British investment? Does it not follow that we cannot go on contributing at the same rate?

Mr. Wilson: That was a very helpful intervention, showing exactly what is wrong with the party opposite. They spend their time living in the past and thinking that in these economic matters the world owes us a living because of what we did in the 19th century. I can give the House a lot of figures. But I give the hon. Member this point—which he did not make—in respect of the Indian figures. I agree that those figures were affected by the substantial tied American aid which caused an increase in American exports. But that is not true of most of the other countries or the other figures that I have given. The fault lies not in a failure of Commonwealth markets to expand but in our own failure to hold our share of those markets. We have been losing ground to our competitors.
I want to give one final set of figures. They are dollar trade figures. I take two of our principal competitors—the United States and Japan. In 1954, between them they supplied 1,010 million dollars worth of manufactured goods to the overseas sterling area, while we supplied 2,907 million dollars worth. That means that in manufactured goods supplied by the three leading countries in this regard—Britain, United States and Japan—we accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total trade. That was as recently as 1954, before the right hon. Gentleman became Secretary of State. In 1962 the figure for the United States and Japan together had risen from 1,010 million dollars to 2,511 million dollars, while ours had risen only from 2,907 million dollars to 2,981 million dollars. Theirs increased by 1,500 million dollars, or 150 per cent., and ours


by 74 million dollars, or 2½ per cent. If we put it in another way, we had three-quarters of the trade and they had one-quarter in 1954, but in 1962—eight years later—they had nearly half. Of the increased trade we have managed to obtain just one-twentieth, compared with the nineteen-twentieths of the United States and Japan.
Put in yet another way, over those eight years United States exports to the Commonwealth rose by 901 million dollars; E.E.C.'s by 774 million dollars; Japan's by 600 million dollars, and Britain's by 74 million dollars.
Is the right hon. Gentleman proud of that record? Would not he have done better to address himself to these figures and to say what he will do to try to reverse these trends? Why has this happened? First, Government policy has consistently worked against the expansion of Anglo-Commonwealth trade. As I have said, in their doctrinaire rush to reopen speculative commodity markets they cancelled most of the 52 long-term contracts that were in force with Commonwealth countries in 1951. In other ways their commercial policy drove Common wealth countries into the arms of other suppliers—as when they dismantled a number of important preferences which Australia had enjoyed in our markets. They consistently opposed the negotiation of international commodity agreements which, more than anything else, would have helped to maintain the purchasing power of Commonwealth countries for our exports.
In fact, time and time again they claimed credit for the fall in the purchasing power of these countries for British exports. How often has the Chancellor claimed credit for the improvement in the terms of trade? This is what he means. What else could he mean? The Government's stop-go policy has had a devastating effect on demand for Commonwealth raw materials. The Chancellor always tells us these days how successful he is being in taking up the slack in our industrial system—but who let the slack develop? More correctly—to give discredit where discredit is due—who, by their crash policies in 1957 and 1961, deliberately, and with intent, caused this slack to develop? What did they think this meant in terms of the demand for Commonwealth goods, and hence in

the power of the Commonwealth to buy from us? Idle factories, or factories on short-time, provide a very poor demand for Commonwealth raw materials.
Without at this point going into the Common Market argument, no one can deny that the deal that they were not only ready but avid to negotiate with Europe, and the undignified political enthusiasm that they showed at their Llandudno Conference could have no other effect than persuade Commonwealth countries, almost without exception, that the Government were ready to turn their back on the Commonwealth in favour of their new love.
We made it clear all along that our view is that preferences as such are a much less important asset in inter-Commonwealth trade, and we were not prepared to sacrifice trade with the Commonwealth in order to get into the Common Market. That was our position and it is our position, and before the debate ends we want to know whether it is the Government's position.
That was the theme of the last Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, when Commonwealth objections were brusquely over-ridden by the Government, and when the Secretary of State for Common wealth Relations used to the full his not inconsiderable talents with the Press, even to the point of direct personal attacks on at least one Commonwealth Prime Minister. The impression they created has remained. This Government's policies have, in a greater or lesser degree, diminished the ability, or even, marginally, the willingness of Commonwealth countries to buy their expanding import requirements from us. But there has been another factor at work. Our ability to supply their needs has been diminished because of the Government's economic policy, which has had the effect of building up in this country a soft-centre economy as opposed to the hard-centre economy needed to produce the machinery, transport equipment, and other equipment which the Commonwealth needs.
A policy which holds down the expansion of our basic industries for three years in every four and then embarks on a frantic consumer goods boom—such as the hire-purchase boom of 1959—creates an economic structure incapable of meeting the requirements of


Commonwealth markets or meeting the ruthless competition of our rivals who have been building up their hard-centre economy, their metal-using industries, over these years. If we seek a symbol of our decline in exporting to the Commonwealth—the right hon. Gentleman never began to get near this point—we need not look beyond the Government's creation of a "candy-floss" economy in this country.
Thirdlly, we have the indifferent effort of so many manufacturers. With a soft home market, they said, "Why bother?" When producing consumer goods it was easier for them to concentrate on Western Europe. We must ask: what single thing have the Government done in 12 years to encourage direct exports to the Commonwealth? Not even exhortation, though we had a bit this afternoon. In the past, we have had hortatory speeches, many of them very good, about exports to the United States and to Western Europe. But hardly ever about exports to the Commonwealth.
We have had a Dollar Exports Council, which I set up. It is now the Western Hemisphere Exports Council. Why not have a Commonwealth Exports Council? If one-tenth of the effort which the Government and industry put into exports to the dollar area or to Europe—a very necessary effort—had been put into a Commonwealth trade drive as well, I should not have been in a position this afternoon to quote the dismal figures which I have been quoting. I hope that before the end of the debate we shall be told that the Prime Minister has thought again and that he now proposes to ask the Board of Trade to encourage the establishment of a really powerful, hard-hitting Council for Exports to the Commonwealth—

Mr. Ridley: Why did not you set it up?

Mr. Wilson: At that time we were exporting so much to the Commonwealth that our problem, almost, was to have to hold back. I have given the figures. Hon. Members should look at the agreements with other countries. After the war we were extremely short of industrial capacity in steel and chemicals. We had to hold down the export of certain

basic chemicals and steel to the Commonwealth so as to meet our obligations to some other countries.
What do we propose? I will answer that briefly. It is on the record. I am not standing here to announce a belated conversion. I could refer hon. Members to 30 or 40 speeches, but I shall not do so. But I welcome the conversion of the right hon. Gentleman to the wider concept of a political and economic community bringing in the Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. That is to be welcomed. I remember that in November, 1961, when the Clayton-Herter Report was published, I said in Leeds that that was the sort of line on which we should be going rather than the narrow line of the Lord Privy Seal. Last May I summarised our own policy in a 10-point plan. I will stick to the headlines, because many of the things have been argued in detail.
One. Arrangements should be made for regular meetings to work through the development and capital investment programmes of each Commonwealth country. We should ask for a specific preference in awarding contracts to Britain—exactly as the United States does in its defence and Buy American Act programmes—from the Commonwealth. I believe that we could get it. I remember that when I was in Canada, the principal utilities, the Ontario Hydro-Electric Scheme, the Toronto subways, and the rest of them, slanted purchasing programmes in the direction of Britain. One province, Saskatchewan, has written into its legislation a "Buy British" Act awarding preference to Britain, providing that prices are not more than 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. above prices from other areas. I think that instead of tariff preferences we should have preferences in the way of capital contracts and apply to take part in Commonwealth development.
Two. In return, we should undertake to provide guaranteed markets for Commonwealth primary produce in this country—never mind the more speculative markets. This would provide assurance and economic stability in the Commonwealth and ensure that our Commonwealth partners were able to afford to maintain and expand their purchases from us.
Three. To fulfil Commonwealth requirements for developmental capital we should agree to expand those sections of our industrial system where existing capacity is inadequate to meet Commonwealth needs—both by incentives to private enterprise and by creating new publicly-owned industrial establishments.
Four. We should agree to work jointly for worldwide commodity agreements to stabilise primary prices. The Prime Minister was more forthcoming this afternoon than the Government have been over the last 12 years. He must realise that all the aid supplied by Western countries from 1953 to the present time—all of them, bilaterally and through the United Nations; it has been a considerable figure—has been more than offset by the fall in primary prices over the last 10 years.
Five. We should agree to take the initiative with the United States and other friendly countries to expand the volume of world liquidity for financing world trade, with particular emphasis on schemes linking the creation of new credit to the needs of under-developed countries and our productive capacity here and in other advanced countries.
Six. I have referred to our programme, a Commonwealth programme, of higher education, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly dealt with this afternoon.
Seven. We should arrange for a fuller exchange of scientific information between countries. I do not think that this has gone anything like far enough.
Eight. We should agree to establish in each advanced country a scheme whereby cities and towns, churches and voluntary organisations should adopt towns and villages in under-developed countries to help them with the provision of industrial and agricultural equipment, school and hospital buildings, and staff, and we should be prepared—make no bones about this—to provide a Government contribution proportionate to the funds raised by voluntary effort.
Nine. We should work towards the creation of a pensionable career service for work in the Commonwealth, irrespective for whom people were working, and provide by legislation that professional and technical experts who take

short-service posts in Commonwealth countries should have their pension rights maintained and safeguarded.
Ten. We have exchanged a few words on this matter this afternoon. We should aim to enlist the enthusiasm of young people in a service dedicated to aiding Commonwealth economic and social development.
I wish to refer briefly to one or two points which the Prime Minister made outside the sphere of trade. He referred to aid. I was surprised that he did not give figures for the last year or two. I wonder whether it would be a surprise to him to know that in the first six months of this financial year compared with the first six months of the previous year, according to the figures published by the Government, aid to the Colonies is actually down, and aid to the independent Commonwealth countries is down even more. I hope that we shall hear that this figure is picking up in the second part of the year.
The Prime Minister referred to technical assistance, and we welcome very much what he said about education. Useful work is being done in a limited direction. But, in total, we are playing with it. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what we need. A full-scale Ministry of Overseas Development, under a Minister of Cabinet rank, to take over all responsibility for all Commonwealth and other overseas development to assist and co-operate with voluntary effort in this country—War on want, Oxfam, Freedom from Hunger, and the rest—and to take responsibility for our representation on the U.N. specialised agencies—F.A.O., W.H.O., and the rest—instead of leaving them as spare-time departments for the Ministeries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Education and Health.
One of the jobs of this Ministry should be to mobilise the unused capacity of this country. What about railway workshops? Would not it make sense to make use of one or two that we are closing down? Many of the older workers are not being reabsorbed in expanding industry. They are going on the dole. Knowing that so many overseas countries are facing a big bottleneck over transport equipment, would not it make sense to turn over one or two of these railway workshops and


one or two of the redundant Royal Ordnance factories to this sort of job?
Besides aid in money, what about aid in kind? Would it not be a good idea to work out a few development schemes in which we signed an agreement to supply to these countries 100,000 tons of ingot steel every year in addition to what we are doing for them in finance?
Then, what about scientific research? I hope that particularly as a result of our new university programme we shall find a lot more of our research effort going into the kind of developmental equipment which is designed to help world development. I wonder how many research contracts with universities, colleges of advanced technology, private and public, the Minister for Science has placed for the specific purpose of developing new products of special relevance to food production and the needs of developing countries. We shall not speed the development of hungry countries with the overspill of the affluent society. We may in this country develop a wonderful system of colour television and win export markets for it in advanced countries. Fine, we need those exports, but we need research, also, on all the tools of development which our highly sophisticated civilisation has left behind.
I wonder when research was last done on some of the more primitive instruments used in agriculture. Why should not some of our new universities and colleges of advanced technology, in particular, be encouraged to do some of this research and their agricultural departments stimulated into vital life-giving work on plant-breeding, seed-cropping, soil science ecology, and the rest, to raise agricultural productivity? I hope that we shall hear more about that tonight.
The Prime Minister referred to the export of capital and gave some figures. Of course, he did not say for what purposes some of that capital was going. A considerable part of the figures related to oil investment. He is right to say that how much we send abroad depends on the balance of payments position—which at the moment is deteriorating—and on our economic strength, but what we export in the way of investment in the

Commonwealth should be more purposefully channelled than it is today. There is trouble in Tanganyika. The Prime Minister has been talking to America about it. I remember crossing swords with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer four years ago about the miserably inadequate aid we were then proposing to send to Tanganyika.
I remember drawing attention to the fact that we seemed to have plenty of capital in this country for property speculation in Manhattan. Some of it has proved singularly unsuccessful and costly to this country, but, successful or not, I was not myself under the impression that the United States was a capital-hungry country, and whatever words one chooses to describe Manhattan one cannot call it an under-developed area. I suggest that we shall not get this purposeful channelling of aid where it is needed in the Commonwealth unless we have much more purposeful control of our overseas investment including—I am not burking the phrase—controls on the export of British capital which we can ill spare for the purposes of speculation in the United States of America.
The Prime Minister referred to troop movements in East Africa. Of course, in relation to what has happened there we have fully supported the decision to take up this restrospective "white man's burden". We fully echo the tributes to the forces who have fulfilled their task with admirable efficiency and restraint, but our decision to supply their needs has extended still further the stretched resources of our manpower. We had to send troops to four additional Commonwealth countries which none of us even mentioned as possibly requiring to have troops sent to them when we had the defence debate only three weeks ago. If the Prime Minister will permit what I am sure he thinks is an indelicate observation, in Borneo, Cyprus and the East African countries we have seen the total irrelevance of the Government's obsession with the thermo-nuclear question. At least it is not totally irrelevant save in one sense—that our expenditure on it has sharply diminished our strength in conventional resources.
The Prime Minister said that there is little purpose in going today into questions of Commonwealth machinery, and


I agree. The Leader of the House, in his brief period on his ex-Ministerial Elba, had some bright thoughts about a Commonwealth Development Council such as we had in mind in the first of our 10 points. We welcomed what he said, but it is a pity that it seems to have been lost sight of. Frankly, in Commonwealth affairs it is the will and purpose that matter much more than the machinery, and in our view it is the will and purpose that have been lacking.
We are appalled at the fact that we have not had the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference for three years. In saying that I am trying to forget the disastrous gathering in September, 1962, which came near to breaking up the entire Commonwealth relationship. Whatever good had come from all the previous conferences—and I have attended a number and the right hon. Gentleman has attended more—was just about dissipated at that one.
Last November we suggested in the debate on the Address that a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference should be held quickly and that one of its purposes should be a Commonwealth discussion of Southern Rhodesia. Even the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations flirted with the idea, and no one would ever accuse him of being obsessional about the Commonwealth. I suspect that last week, when the Prime Minister met Mr. Winston Field, he was wishing that he had taken our advice and made this a Commonwealth responsibility. I know that when I met Mr. Field that thought was uppermost in my mind.
I have one other suggestion which the House might consider—it is for the House, not for the Government or the Opposition Front Bench. The right hon. Gentleman rightly paid tribute to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I wonder whether we could apply all this and go further. We have had many years' valuable experience of the Council of Europe. Could we not do as much for the Commonwealth idea as Strasbourg has done for the European idea if we were to discuss with our partners in the Commonwealth the idea of a Commonwealth Consultative Assembly, leading to a full Council of the Commonwealth?
Finally, I turn to the relations between the Commonwealth and Common Market in future. The House knows where we stand on this question. It was set out in many debates. It was set out unforgettably in that last speech by Hugh Gaitskell, at Brighton. It was set out in our conference statement and carried by our conference with an overwhelming majority. We said then, and we say now, that we are prepared to resume negotiations for entry into the Common Market if, and only if, we can get the five conditions we then laid down. That position stands.
I repeat, as we said—and supported our statements with our votes in the Lobby—in the debate on 7th and 8th November, 1962, that the package deal which the I resident of the Board of Trade, who was then Lord Privy Seal, was in process of completing, did not, in our view, fulfil those five conditions, particularly the one relating to the Commonwealth, when we insisted on
Strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth.

Mr. Ridley: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Wilson: We have stated very clearly where we stand and with a little patience I hope to state even more clearly where we stand on this matter.
What we should like is a statement of equal frankness from the Government. I will gladly give way to the Prime Minister if he will answer the question I shall put. I stress particularly that the development since the breakdown of the Common Market talks on the Common Market agricultural policy, with its penal import levies on imports from third countries, including the Commonwealth, reinforces all the anxieties we expressed in the debate of 7th and 8th November, 1962, and the debate of 13th December of the same year.
Now I come to the remarkable performance of the Prime Minister on this question. First, we had the singular wording of the Prorogation speech:
My Government deeply regretted the interruption of the negotiations for the accession of the United Kingdom to the Treaties of paris and Rome."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th October, 1963; Vol. 682, c. 978.]


The word "interruption" suggested to some people that not only did the Government deeply regret what had happened, but that they were looking forward to a resumption at the earliest possible moment of negotiations, presumably on the same basis as before.
On 26th October, speaking in Wales, I invited the Prime Minister to say clearly whether he would insist on our five safeguards as a condition for further negotiations about entry. So good were the communications between Pwllheli and Kinross that the Prime Minister answered this challenge the same evening. I was grateful to him. I felt that his elegantly worded reply was certainly in the very highest tradition of British pantomime. I will read it now and see whether the House does not agree with me. He said this:
The Common Market opens up an enormous single market on our doorstep. And it is in the interests of our progressive industry and our farmers that we should be a part of this market. But we should only go in if the political and economic terms are suitable. When we applied for entry the terms were not suitable and we stayed out. I do not know if circumstances will arise in which we can open the question again, but if we do we shall still demand the right terms for our entry.
The report goes on in this way:
Sir Alec added with a smile: 'If Mr. Wilson's questions are so easy as that I am going to send him a telegram and ask him to come round the by-election meetings with me.'
It is a pity he did not.
That was his view of what happened in Brussels—
the terms were not suitable and we stayed out.
Is that what he really thinks? He was Foreign Secretary at the time. Did not they tell him anything, either? Did not they tell him about General de Gaulle? I had better explain to him. It was not the Government who said "No" at Brussels. We were all ready to say "Yes", falling over ourselves, apparently, to say "Yes".
The Prime Minister's account is totally different from that of his right hon. Friend's, because the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan)), on 11th February, during the inquest into the Brussels breakdown, said this:

The negotiations did not break down, as they might have done, on a long-drawn-out series of detailed bargains.
If the European vision has been obscured it has not been by a minor obstruction on one side or the other. It was brought to an end by a dramatic, if somewhat brutal, stroke of policy. As I said in my broadcast the next day, the end did not come because the discussions were menaced with failure. On the contrary, it was because they threatened to succeed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1963; Vol. 671, c. 954.]
That was the statement of the then Prime Minister.
The then Lord Privy Seal, now President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for heaven knows what, said this on 12th February:
The Prime Minister said yesterday, and I said in Brussels, that we were on the point of reaching a conclusion to the negotiations … with the intervention of the French Foreign Minister, we came to the end of these negotiations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1963; Vol. 671, cc. 1145–46.]
I think that that was a pretty fair account of what happened. The Lord Privy Seal was there and he got it about right, but nobody thought of telling the then Foreign Secretary. No; in the dream world that he was living in—
the terms were not suitable and we stayed out,
I will say this. A few days later the right hon. Gentleman had another go at it and evolved a form of words to which he stuck right through his by-election. I think that he said this seven times, which shows very considerable consistency:
There is no question of getting into the Common Market before there is a General Election.
He said—[Laughter]. No, that is really not fair, because he said something more:
If the possibility ever occurred in the future it would be for Parliament to decide whether we entered or not.
All right. We accept that it is not likely to come up in this Parliament. But suppose that by a ghastly mischance he and his right hon. Friends get back at the next General Election. I want to ask him this, and to ask him this does not imply that I think that he will get back. It does not imply any morbid preoccupations on my part. The Prime Minister spends half his time going round the country asking me what we are going to do if we win. I am not aware that he regards these questions


as conceding the election. Of course, he has not conceded it yet. However, he does get some very full answers from me. The last two questions he put to me got speeches to a total length of 130 minutes at Swansea, for which I apologise.
Now it is my turn. The Prime Minister's answer was that it is a matter for Parliament. What does he propose—a free vote? Is that his idea, that if we get a Conservative Government the decision whether to enter will be taken on a free vote with the Whips off? They were not prepared to do that in 1962. Why, even delegates to their party conference had their arms twisted by a battery of prominent Ministers on the Llandudno Promenade. I read dramatic accounts of it the next day.
I think that we should point out to the right hon. Gentleman that it is usual—he himself may regret it—nowadays, in matters of national importance, for the Government of the day to give a lead to Parliament on these questions and not leave them all to a free vote. Indeed, I may tell him that it is not unknown for the Patronage Secretary to go to work, for three-line Whips to be issued, and all that sort of thing. Are the Government proposing a free vote on resale price maintenance? Of course not. The Whips will be at work.
So the right hon. Gentleman's answer in Kinross was a complete equivocation. That is why at Birmingham, on 20th January, I gave him another chance to justify his poster-claim of straight talk. I had a reason for doing this at Birmingham on 20th January, because that day, in the Sunday Telegraph, I had read these words, written by its diplomatic correspondent:
Sir Alec Douglas-Home assured Dr. Erhard, the West German Chancellor, in London last week that if the Conservatives win this year's elections his Government would immediately resume its efforts to 'go into Europe'.
That was what the Sunday Telegraph said.
The following Friday the Daily Telegraph said this:
Mr. Butler, Foreign Secretary, yesterday gave Ministers of the six Common Market countries a strongly worded reminder that Britain is determined to join the Common Market and to take an active part in discussions on a European political union.

I personally regard the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph as respectable newspapers—on the news side, anyway. They do not, like some evening newspapers I could think of, dress up some phantasm of one of their political writers and state categorically that a thing has happened, or that something has been decided, when, in fact, it has not. If the Sunday Telegraph says that the Prime Minister said something to Dr. Erhard, or if the Daily Telegraph says that the Foreign Secretary said something at W.E.U., I believe that they honestly believe it to be true and have substantial grounds for saying it.
So, now, can the House of Commons be told the facts on these things? We had the extraordinary circumstances of the Foreign Secretary at Question Time the other day Many hon. Members, and at least two leading newspapers, got the idea that he said that there was no question of going into the Common Market. We are used to the Foreign Secretary's statements being interpreted by two different people in two different ways, but not to people hearing them in two different ways. It is extraordinary to see the different recordings of the speech one got in different newspapers. However, we checked in HANSARD and found that no bones had been broken. All he said was that no question had arisen of our going into Europe.
There is a great deal of confusion about where the Government stand on this matter. The right hon. Gentleman, plainly, has evaded every question put to him on this, but he cannot go on evading it.

Mr. Ridley: rose—

Mr. Wilson: The Prime Minister does not need the hon. Gentleman's protection. He is quite capable of rising and giving us an answer himself. I will gladly give way when he does.
Conscious that perhaps no one has yet told him what my question was, I will repeat it now, across the Table, "Will he give a pledge that no Government of which he is the head will consider entry into the Common Market on any terms which would reduce Britain's existing freedom to trade with the Commonwealth?"
On behalf of my party, I give that pledge. I put that question to the right


hon. Gentleman. The House, and, I believe, the country, will expect an answer.

5.41 p.m.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I welcome this debate on the Commonwealth and the opportunity to make a contribution to it. I am glad that the debate has taken place on the Motion of the Government and that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, by moving the Motion himself, has testified, early in his term of office, his interest and belief in the Commonwealth.
I wish to begin by making four general propositions which, in my view, constitute the background against which we must assess the practicability of constructive and effective proposals for Commonwealth co-operation.
First, the Commonwealth can make a contribution to the contemporary world far greater than the mere measure of its material resources. Secondly, the capacity and strength of the Commonwealth is nevertheless considerably conditioned by the range and vitality of its economic co-operation. It follows, at all times, that there is, thirdly, a continuing need to review, revise and invigorate Commonwealth co-operation, and, in particular, economic co-operation. That is particularly so in the aftermath of the Common Market negotiations. Fourthly, to do that successfully depends in large degree on the exercise of British initiative.
History, tradition, custom and circumstance have joined to make it so; and, compared with other Commonwealth countries, this country has consequently a special opportunity—matched, of course, by a heightened responsibility. This last proposition is not, perhaps, a very easy one for citizens of this country to make. So I prefer to put it forward in the words of a great Australian statesman.
This is what Lord Casey said in his recent book, The Future of the Commonwealth:
Any effort to create greater Commonwealth cohesion has, therefore, to come from Britain in the first place. If Britain does not take the initiative no other Commonwealth country will; but if she does and if she vigorously seeks the co-operation of other Commonwealth countries I believe it will be forthcoming.

The British Government should overcome any hesitancy about taking the initiative, following the end of the Common Market negotiations. It was possible to argue at that time that the importance of the Commonwealth connection was diminished by the prospect of an equal and active participation in the European Economic Community. As the House knows, I never took that view, but I have at all times respected the sincerity of advocates of entry into the Common Market, from whichever side of the House they came.
I have no desire to exhume that controversy, because in present circumstances it does not arise. The circumstances are different; and it could not be properly or plausibly argued today that it could conceivably promote the interest or dignity of this country to loiter in the outer courtyards of the Common Market, awaiting an invitation that may never come, rather than press on vigorously in quest of enhanced Commonwealth co-operation.
The choice today is not between Commonwealth and Common Market, but between Commonwealth and a decline in the prestige, prosperity and power of the British people. I hold it to be axiomatic, therefore, that there is now an urgent and imperative need to take steps to achieve closer Commonwealth co-operation, primarily but by no means solely in the economic sphere.
As I said in the debate after the end of the Common Market negotiations—about this time last year—the main formal links of Commonwealth co-operation are necessarily economic. Strengthen these and we strengthen the whole. Strengthen these and we strengthen the great purposes we seek to serve. There is clear scope for expansion of Commonwealth trade. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred to the tribal mythology of the doctrine of the inevitable decline in Commonwealth trade. With respect to him, it was a view which I have heard and contested from various quarters during the course of a controversy which, he well knows, cut across party frontiers.
It is true that in the last decade or so the terms of trade have run obstinately against primary products and it is a fact that the Commonwealth countries


are mainly primary producers. Despite these circumstances, the Commonwealth remains our best customer and, apart from sentimental and traditional aspects, the Commonwealth countries have economies most naturally complementary to ours.
We have today this position. There has been an advancing Commonwealth trade as a whole, with a considerable potential for expansion; but that does not give us in this country any inherent right or sure expectation of securing our full share in the growth of the whole. It is achieving that which constitutes a challenge to us—a challenge to British industry and statesmanship alike. We can see the trend and, perhaps, take encouragement from the fact that such trends are by no means irreversible.
In the 'twenties our Commonwealth trade declined considerably and the position was sharply reversed by the initiative of the Ottawa Agreements. Today, we need much more than a revision of preferential arrangements, important though they may be. We need a whole complex of action to strengthen our position at every point. I have been giving consideration to this matter for some time and, with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), we published our proposals two years ago in A Call to the Commonwealth. It was not a very fashionable thing to do at that time, because many people took the view that by 1963 we would be in the Common Market and that there would be consequential inhibitions on further Commonwealth co-operation.
Time has somewhat changed that and proposals have come in from various quarters. They are not all identical in detail or emphasis, but they do have a broad common denominator. I welcome this because there is, or should be, no copyright in constructive proposals and no jealous pride of authorship. The aim of these proposals is the same; to stimulate thought and discussion on these important matters, and to suggest action to those in a position to take it.
The proposals put forward by my hon. Friend and myself fall into three main categories: first, the review and revision of our trade and tariff agreements to

bring them up to date; secondly, the central core of our proposals in the economic field, research and trade promotion on a Commonwealth basis for the expans on of markets and investment; thirdly, proposals which, while having economic implications, are primarily social in their connotation.
On the first of those matters, I propose to say nothing today, not because I do not think that it is important, but because I addressed myself to it in the debate last February, and again on 26th April, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell), who speaks on this subject with much more expertise than I could claim, has also spoken on it in the debate on the Address.
I want to come to the central core of our economic proposals. If we want co-operation and co-ordination, I think that we must have better Commonwealth machinery for doing it. Purpose and good will, on which the right hon. Gentleman relies, are very good, but machinery is also necessary. We cannot, of course, in the looser structure of the Commonwealth—the less institutionalised structure—quite duplicate the work done by the Commission in the European Economic Community; but we certainly need an organisation that is executive as well as merely consultative.
We took the view that the existing Consultative Council should be an executive body, and thereby give substance to its present somewhat shadowy existence. In doing that, we had in mind that there are various important functions that could be performed under its aegis—market research on a country and commodities basis, with the possibility of a Commonwealth Marketing Board—action in regard to price stabilisation and the appropriate disposal of surpluses; investigation and correlation of energy and fuel requirements; research into investment and economic growth; a raw materials survey on the lines of the Paley Report in the United States; measures for the encouragement and protection of capital investment and, in particular, a Commonwealth agreement on the treatment of capital, with a Commonwealth Capital Guarantee Department to do in that field what the E.C.G.D. does for exports.
That is not, of course, an exhaustive list. There is the possibility of a Commonwealth Payments Union, and a whole range of actions we can take in this country, independently of Commonwealth participation, such as the setting up of a Commonwealth Exports Council to help promote exports to the Commonwealth from this country. I submit that all this needs effective machinery—whatever name it has—effective staff, defined functions and a high and determined sense of purpose.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that we must await enthusiasm from the Commonwealth. I think that we in this country, following what Lord Casey has said, must try to generate that enthusiasm in the Commonwealth. It is no good our waiting for the Commonwealth countries, because they are waiting for us; otherwise, we get into the ludicrous position of the Earl of Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan:
Great Chatham with his sabre drawn
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan,
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.
We have to take the initiative, and we must get out of the way of thinking that the initial disagreement of any one Commonwealth country on any constructive proposal is the end of the matter. We have to see what we think should be done, take the initiative, as Lord Casey has said, and bring to the matter all the persuasion, advocacy, and tenacity of purpose we can command.
I should like now to refer to the third category of our proposals—the social aspect the other links, as my right hon. Friend has called them. We proposed the possibility of a Commonwealth Employment Bureau, a Commonwealth Population Board, a Commonwealth technical training scheme, Commonwealth studies in management and business and, last but not least, the possibility of a Commonwealth university system on a regional basis—a project that is also endorsed by the high authority of Lord Casey.
I want to add only two further points at this stage. First, the Commonwealth is noted for its diversity—the diversity of race and culture which is one of its strengths and one of its virtues. But

the diversity is not confined to that. There is also a great disparity of income and resources, and that is a virtue in a more qualified sense because it reflects the conditions of the world as they are today and shows the possibility of harmonious co-operation between rich and poor, developed and undeveloped.
But it is, of course, only a virtue in so far as efforts are being made to narrow the margin and bring the two sections together. Therefore, in A Call to the Commonwealth, we wrote these words:
In the 19th century Disraeli warned the country of the danger involved in the existence of two nations, one rich and one poor. He advocated and introduced a policy of social reform to alleviate the dangers of a divided nation. In the conditions of today, with the world living ever closer together, there may be danger involved in the existence of two Commonwealths, one rich and one poor, and we advocate a policy of Commonwealth social reform to eliminate the dangers of a divided Commonwealth.
That, again, requires a British initiative and effort, and it requires, perhaps, sacrifice by the richer and more developed nations.
That brings me to my second point on this aspect. If people are to make that effort and sacrifice, they must be convinced that it is in a fully worthy cause. They must be convinced that it is serving an ideal in which they believe. The diversity to which I have referred is only one characteristic of the Commonwealth; the other necessary characteristic is unity. The diversity of race and culture with the unity of constitutional belief and practice—that is what will enable the Commonwealth to give an example to the world of an association of independent nations, diverse and multiracial, all practising the great principles of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.
We tend to take these things for granted in the Commonwealth; but they are not automatic, and effort is needed to keep them. I have referred to Parliamentary democracy and the rule of law—Dicey's two great pillars of the Constitution. Logically, however, I should perhaps put them in the other order, because, although you may have the form of Parliamentary democracy, without the rule of law you cannot have its reality. Genuine Parliamentary democracy is based on the rule of law,


and we in this country, with our long traditions, have a great responsibility to do all we can to ensure the strengthening and survival of these two great principles in the Commonwealth.
We should ask ourselves whether we are doing all that we can. To take one example that I have previously commended to the House, are we doing all we can to promote the possibility of a Commonwealth Court of Appeal? The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to which my right hon. Friend referred, has done, and continues to do, work of great value, but there has been a substantial secession from it. Canada, India, Pakistan, Ghana, Cyprus have all seceded from the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee, and Tanganyika is to go this year.
I do not think that we can hope to re-attract them back on the basis of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as it stands. It is too narrow a base. We would have to broaden the base and widen the range of membership; and we have very fine judges in the Commonwealth, trained in the discipline and the principles of the English law. The Court would no doubt need some form of a circuit system. I do not want to go into details. I know that there are difficulties, but this is no narrow matter, merely for lawyers, no arid or academic thing. It is a way of providing a great guarantor of the rule of law and an outward and visible sign of its universal and unifying acceptance within the Commonwealth.
I have used my speech to put forward economic and social proposals, most of which I have elaborated in more detail elsewhere. We are to have, I suppose, a Division tonight. I fear that my speech has been sadly deficient in party polemics, for which, I suppose, I ought to apologise, especially in this election year. But I have never been able to regard these matters of Commonwealth policy and co-operation as falling naturally into the field of party controversy and conflict. I believe, rather, that they are part of the mission of the British people as a whole, a clear duty and a great opportunity. I cordially welcome the fact that my right hon. Friends acknowledge that duty and recognise that opportunity and I devoutly hope that their endeavours will match the greatness of the theme.

6.2 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I have a feeling that the enthusiasm with which his party greeted the closing passages of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was not primarily due to the notable debating qualities of that speech, but was enthusiasm for the statement—because it was a statement—that under no conceivable circumstances would we negotiate again to go into Europe.
I cannot but find it sad, and I find it also alarming, that a potential alternative Government should be blind to what is happening just across the Channel and should again and again seem to stress, possibly unintentionally, though I doubt it, a tinge of anti-Europeanism. [HON. MEMBERS: 'NO."] Hon. Members say "No." I am very glad to hear it, but this is undoubtedly the impression given, and given, I may say—

ROYAL ASSENT

6.3 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Consolidated Fund Act, 1964.
2. Air Corporations Act, 1964.
3. Post Office (Borrowing Powers) Act 1964.

COMMONWEALTH TRADE, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND COMMONWEALTH LINKS

Question again proposed.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Grimond: I was speaking of the official attitude of the Labour Party to Europe. What strikes me as sad and alarming is that the Labour Party never seems willing to give the European countries credit for the very virtues which one would expect to appeal to the Labour Party. The statistics which have been quoted, showing that Commonwealth trade with Europe has very greatly increased—it has gone up 39 per cent. in the last six years—plainly show, whatever their other implications, that Europe is not an


entirely inward-looking community and is not unmindful of the necessity to trade with the Asiatic and African countries as well as with the richer countries of the world.
Further, I doubt whether it is generally recognised in this country—it is certainly not often mentioned by the Labour Party—that France gives a greater amount of aid per capita to the under-developed countries than we do. I believe that this country will make a very grave error if it thinks that it can shut out the developments in Europe.
I believe, also, that there is a fundamental contradiction in saying that we want to be an outward-looking country, that we are anxious to build up our Commonwealth and give all the help we can to the under-developed countries while, at the same time, appearing, at least, to be blind or even hostile to our neighbours across the Channel.
I follow the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in asking the Government to be a little more specific about their present position. At Question Time last Monday, it appeared either that they felt that there could be no question of reopening any economic negotiations in the near future, or even, perhaps—I certainly gathered this impression from some of the Foreign Secretary's replies—that they would not at present want to do so. On the other hand, they did seem very favourably disposed to being brought in on any political developments and even to taking some political initiative themselves. I am not sure that these positions are entirely consistent. It would be valuable in this debate, though I agree that it is somewhat off the subject of the Commonwealth, to know exactly what their present attitude is.
As I understand, it was one of the great objections of those in the Labour Party who were suspicious of any move into Europe that it would mean some loss of sovereignty by this country, but, of course, many of their other proposals, for instance, for international commodity agreements, and for anything in the nature of a Triffin or Stamp plan, which is very necessary would also mean a very considerable diminution of

sovereignty. Here again, there is a contradiction in their attitude.
With the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) I found myself in a great measure of agreement, bearing in mind that he and I disagree about the Common Market. As regards the question of the Commonwealth, I think that he was right in saying that a considerable initiative is called for from this country. I believe that one of the difficulties in the Commonwealth is that, naturally, the Commonwealth leaders themselves are much engrossed with their own internal affairs. If we are to achieve any great extension of Commonwealth trade or the establishment of any new Commonwealth institutions, the initiative will, I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, rest upon the older members of the Commonwealth and, probably, very largely upon our Government.
Secondly, I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the rule of law is of prime importance to the Commonwealth. My only comment is that he coupled this, of course, with Parliamentary government. I believe that one of the mistakes we have made has been to think that our particular form of democratic government can be exported without drastic amendment to countries whose conditions are quite different. For my part, I disagree with the Prime Minister when he attributes troubles in these countries to Communism. I have no doubt that Communists may be very willing to take advantage of a situation in which there is already trouble, but, in my view, we do ourselves a disservice by suggesting that troubles in Africa are always due to the Communists. I believe that they are sometimes due to the fact that we have failed to give the African countries a structure for the administration of government or to advise them how to adapt our highly complicated and rather peculiar system of Parliamentary government to the circumstances of their country.
May I now turn to the question of Commonwealth trade. It is all very well, and, I think, proper, to say that we want it to increase. All sorts of interpretations can be put on the statistics which show that our Commonwealth trade has been


decreasing and that Commonwealth trade with the rest of the world has been increasing. But the fact is that the Commonwealth demands bigger and bigger markets and we are unable to supply them. Malaya supplies half the rubber of the world. Australia now looks to Japan as its chief market for wool. Many Commonwealth countries inevitably look outside this country simply because the scale of their trade is now so large. Nevertheless, this should not make us complacent about the fact that our percentage of Commonwealth trade continually falls.
What I should like to hear from those people who think that this can be easily put right is what they are prepared to do about it. For instance, this country maintains certain tariffs against Commonwealth goods. It maintains a tariff against Canadian cars. It maintains certain restrictions on the entry of goods from Hong Kong. What I should like to hear from those who think this matter can be easily put right is whether they are prepared to do away with these tariffs. I very much doubt whether the Labour Party or any other party is prepared to see a free flow of Commonwealth goods into this country. I frequently hear complaints that the products of cheap labour are very unpleasant for Lancashire. I sympathise with these complaints. This is not such an easy problem to solve as it is sometimes supposed to be.
What we can say is that this country would help a great deal by having a more expansive economy. That it might have achieved that by going into the Common Market, but, certainly, unless the economy of this country is buoyant and expanding, the foundation for increasing our Commonwealth trade does not exist. We can take the lead in pressing for commodity agreements, although, again, there have been suggestions, I think by Baumgartner, about there being one price for certain products in the world. This leads to considerable difficulties and might help some of the more well off countries while not being so helpful to some countries which are less well off.
No doubt we can also encourage the export of capital. I should have thought that, looking at the enormous amount of capital required, it would be very much

easier to assist the Commonwealth and under-developed countries on an international rather than on a national scale. I have one concrete suggestion to make, and that is that there would be great value in an international organisation to guarantee capital which goes into Commonwealth countries against non-commercial risks. I hope that the Government will pursue that matter with their sister Governments in Europe and elsewhere.
I turn to the very important negotiations which start in Geneva on 25th March, the United Nations Trade Conference and the Kennedy Round. We might be able to reduce some of the obstacles to trade in general, but, again, we meet a difficulty, and that is the great discrepancies in various tariffs on goods. If there is an across-the-board reduction, it will have different effects in different countries, and tariffs on some goods—for instance in America and the United Kingdom—will remain high. I do not know whether the Government have any thoughts on this matter which they can divulge to us this evening. I hope that they have. Is it possible to have negotiations on groups of tariffs? Is it possible to have some provisional or contingent arrangement for bringing the higher tariffs down and then perhaps to have a cut across the board?
It was said earlier that the Government have been attempting to get some form of executive Commonwealth Economic Council in operation. The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East, I think, also mentioned his proposals in this matter. It is sad to hear that there is, perhaps, a lack of enthusiasm for this in some Commonwealth countries, but even if we are able to go only as far as an advisory council I hope that such a council would be able to make a great deal more information available throughout the Commonwealth about economic matters and the sort of products which are needed; to assist exporters in directing and channelling their efforts to the parts of the Commonwealth which require their commodities and to produce the goods which they need.
However, in all this talk about trade, we must be clear that one object is to help the Commonwealth and particularly the poorer members. It may well be that there are certain occasions when we can


come to a bilateral agreement and make something useful to the Commonwealth such as the old carriage shops on the railways. This is possible, but now and again we look at this matter as a sort of aid-to-Britain movement. If the Commonwealth can get better and cheaper goods elsewhere than in Britain, it is not very useful to a poor and underdeveloped country to say that it must get them from here. It is important to remember that for some purposes it may pay the Commonwealth to go elsewhere. This is not necessarily something to which we should object.
I wish to say a few words on the other topics of this debate. May I deal, first, with personnel. I am told—and I hope that someone will contradict this, because I can hardly believe that it is true—that last year there was in Nyasaland only one lawyer who was trained at the Bar of this country. I am also told that there are very few doctors there.
I think that we are apt to forget how absolutely vital it is to economic advance in that country that it has a structure of government services, doctors and humble administrators without which no influx of capital yields results. Can we not only build up a university, as the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East suggested, but inquire of the Bar Council, the General Medical Council, and so on, what they are doing to increase the number of administrators and technical and professional men in that country?

Mr, Edward Gardner: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that between 3,000 and 4,000 Commonwealth law students come to this country annually to study law and the traditions of the Bar at the Inns of Court in London? The great majority of these students go back to their countries imbued with those traditions and the principles of law and practise them successfully.

Mr. Grimond: I am aware of that, because I am a member of the Inns of Court, and I have frequently thought that possibly we train too many lawyers, a view widely held in the Inns of Court. But that was why I was amazed at the

fact that there was only one lawyer in Nyasaland who had been trained at the English Bar. I cannot believe that that is wholly true. However, the hon. and learned Member will agree that we have a very strong duty to train personnel. This is something which we can and ought to do.
I have long thought—and, again, this was touched on by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East—that it was a tragedy that this country allowed its colonial service to run down instead of trying to make it the foundation of an international service to supply administrators to these countries. It was a magnificent service. I should have liked to see an arrangement by which pensions could be guaranteed and by which people could be moved from country to country as needed. This is an entirely different type of job and service from that which organisations like Voluntary Service Overseas attempt to do.
I understood the Prime Minister to say that the Government will increase their aid to such organisations as Voluntary Service Overseas for sending young people to the Commonwealth. I was a member—I am not sure whether I still am—of the council of this organisation, and I have the greatest respect for it, but it is vital that we should realise the sort of work that it does. Naturally, the young people it sends overseas cannot be fully technically trained. Therefore, they are not a substitute for a civil service, a teaching service, or a medical service.
The other vital point to be realised is that those who derive the benefit are not only the countries to which the people go, but the people who go there. It is the people whom Voluntary Service Overseas sends out who benefit in the first place. Therefore, while it is a wonderful service, it is no substitute for technical aid. Furthermore, while I welcome the Government's determination to help this organisation, one of its great virtues is that it is unofficial and that it has no aura of being related too much to the establishment either of this country or in the country to which it goes. I hope that we preserve the existing relationship, which I am sure the Government are anxious to do.

The Secretary for Technical Co-operation (Mr. Robert Carr): While I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is no substitute for the assistance of the more experienced experts whom we send out, and while I also agree that the young people who go gain great benefit from going, I think that the right hon. Gentleman went rather far in saying that they do not do much service to the countries in which they work. I assure him that they do very great service. They are in growing demand by the countries to which they go.

Mr. Grimond: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me. If I gave that impression, I did not mean to do so.
I accept that those people do great service to the countries to which they go. I was merely saying that the needs of Africa and Asia are enormous, almost insatiable. They will not be effectively met by an operation on the inevitable scale of the present one. We can hardly expect people of the age and training of these volunteers to fulfil the need for highly trained specialists. It must not, however, be thought that I am in any way detracting from the service which they give, which is very great.
The possibility has also been mentioned of towns in this country adopting towns in Africa. This is already being done. The Borough of Finchley, for example, has adopted the town of Ginja, in Uganda—an excellent move. As it is widely done between this country and the Continent, perhaps I may redress the balance between myself and the right hon. Gentleman by saying that I should welcome a move away from the Continent in this respect and more links with towns in Africa.
I cannot conclude without adding my praise to that already given to the conduct of the troops where they have been called upon to do a very difficult job in the last few months. I do not think that we should be complacent because we are unable to build up Commonwealth institutions—some people talk as though this was a possible advantage. While it is probably inevitable that we cannot build up many Commonwealth institutions, I do not regard this as a virtue. On the other hand, I fully admit that the strength of the Commonwealth lies in the bond of common

feeling which persists even in countries which seem to be seething with discontent.
I can think of no other example in history of an imperial Power such as ourselves, which has just given up its control over these countries, like Tanganyika and Kenya, being called back within a matter of months to support the new Governments of those countries. It is a remarkable tribute to the Commonwealth and to those principles of law, democracy and government to which the light hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East so rightly paid tribute.
We should not, however, presume upon this too far. It is inevitable that the Commonwealth countries will tend to become involved in their own regions. Many of them must be absorbed in their own problems. It is not reasonable to ask those countries which have just gained independence and pulled away a little from the Mother Country to come back into any tight commercial organisation with us. We should, however, put the greatest weight upon the heritage of law and democracy and on all the intangible links which bind us together. While I certainly hope that these might be given a visible sign in appeal courts, in councils dealing with economic affairs and in meetings, between Commonwealth Parliamentarians, I should not be deeply depressed about the Commonwealth even though we continue to find it rather difficult to build up new institutions to give effect to its old bonds.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has said that it would be a good thing if more indigenous people were trained to take the professional jobs in their various countries. He mentioned, for example, Nyasaland, in which there are not many people of that status. Let me give the right hon. Gentleman a further example. A year or so ago, I was in New Guinea, which at that time had only one local inhabitant who had got to the second year of training at Sydney University. I have no doubt that by this time he has got to the third year. That is one person from a very large country. The


thought that passed through my mind when the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was making those remarks was that we have a tremendous task upon our hands. Although I in no way deprecate anything that the right hon. Gentleman said, I simply wanted to mention that there is a great deal to be done.
One of the things that worries me is that not only in this House but throughout the country, and, indeed, in the Commonwealth, when we talk about Commonwealth trade, almost everyone who speaks of the Commonwealth in that context means something different. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland suggested, for example, that what we are discussing today might almost be regarded by some people as an "aid Britain" movement, and that is one of the ways in which we could regard this debate about Commonwealth. That would be what I might call the view of people who are still living in 1932.
When I was in Australia about a year ago, I had the privilege of listening to Sir Robert Menzies reporting to Parliament in Canberra his version of what had happened at the last Prime Ministers' Conference. What he said dealt so faithfully with this concept of the Commonwealth that I should like to mention two sentences from his speech. He had reported that in his earlier time as Prime Minister he had been to a Prime Ministers' Conference when only five Prime Ministers were present. He recalled that at the last conference seventeen Prime Ministers and three observers were present, and he said that
in so large and diverse a gathering, it would not be reasonable to expect any high measure of unanimity.
Then followed a long passage in which he set out all the divergent interests of various parts of the Commonwealth wanting different things, and at the end of it he said:
Under these circumstances, it is not so remarkable that we failed to produce an agreed statement on all of the economic matters involved, as it is that we were able to produce a communiqué at all.
The first point, therefore, which I put to the House for consideration is that when people talk about Commonwealth trade, it is as well to remember

that the Commonwealth today is not an identifiable trading community with a clearly defined boundary around it. There are plenty of examples that any of us could give of different parts of the Commonwealth thinking that they were usefully providing something for other parts and then those other parts of the Commonwealth finding that they can do those things quite happily themselves.
A year ago in Fiji, for example, I saw a plantation which some years ago had grown bananas for the Australian market. Australia found, however, that it could grow quite nice bananas at home, and bananas are now no longer grown in that part of Fiji. Equally, I could give examples of companies which have gone from this country to set up factories in different parts of the Commonwealth finding in due course that they were in competition with new and similar factories erected in the locality and regulations being introduced making it impossible for the original company to continue its work.
Secondly, there are those who proceed entirely on the basis, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, that it is largely a matter of trade between this country and the different parts of the Commonwealth. I myself have found that in a great many places of the Commonwealth, when talking about Commonwealth trade, people there mean trade between their country and the United Kingdom. Of course, such trade makes up three-quarters of the total trade done by the Commonwealth. This country is the largest importer and exporter to every part of the Commonwealth, with the exception of Canada. That point of view, however, seems a dangerous approach to Commonwealth trade, as was shown when the Common Market was under consideration.
The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) said that apparently all these difficulties which have arisen in the Commonwealth have resulted from recent Government policies, in particular the decision to try to join the Common Market. I would like him to consider the foreword to a book, given to me before I went to Australia, entitled Australia—An Economic and Investment Reference, which was published under the authority of the


Commonwealth of Australia in 1961. That was before the Common Market negotiations reached their peak. This was the view expressed by the foreword:
Under the United Kingdom/Australia Trade Agreement, 1957, the principle of mutual preference was retained. At the same time Australia gained the right to reduce tariff preferences, accorded to the United Kingdom, to lower levels than those required under the Ottawa Agreement of 1932. This freedom has given Australia room to manœuvre in negotiating trade agreements or mutual tariff concessions with other countries, and to effect valuable cost savings for industry
That seems to be the view held by most Commonwealth countries. They want to do trade wherever they can. It is certainly the view that Australians were expressing before the Common Market negotiations began. The right hon. Gentleman set out the figures for trade between Australia and Japan. I have them here, and the fact that they have gone up steeply in an example of the type of development I have just mentioned.
The third way in which one can look at Commonwealth trade is not quite as common as the other two. This is the importance of trade between different parts of the Commonwealth other than the United Kingdom. When I was discussing this aspect with someone in one of the outer parts of the Commonwealth he said, "The trouble with the Commonwealth is that it is really a wheel without a rim". Possibly the most important thing we should be discussing now is what we can do to encourage the building of the rim, to see how we can get more trade going between different parts of the Commonwealth and not concentrate entirely on other aspects.
In New Zealand, I remember discussing on a number of occasions the possibility of New Zealand having increased trade with the Caribbean and other parts of the Commonwealth. I was not really surprised that the idea did not seem to have occurred to some of the people I was speaking to, but I was recently in the Caribbean and was pleasantly surprised to find that New Zealand is doing quite good business there. That is the type of development I should like to see encouraged by every possible means. However, there are some quite encouraging figures from

that point of view. For example, Canada, between 1958 and 1962 increased her sales to New Zealand by 77 per cent. and has doubled her trade with Australia in the last five years.
The Leader of the Opposition gave a long list of figures indicating that a lower percentage of total Commonwealth trade had been achieved by this country than was the case some years ago. He told us about total Commonwealth exports as a percentage of exports to all countries and also gave the figures for imports. I thought that he was quite misleading and unfair when he failed to mention that precisely the same figures could have been given for trade between, for example, Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth, for which Her Majesty's Government cannot be accused of having any direct responsibility. The same would be true of Australia or New Zealand.
I have here figures showing that the percentage of exports to the Commonwealth from Canada in 1958 fell from 21 to 19 per cent., in Australia from 52 to 39 per cent. and in New Zealand from 64 to 57 per cent. I utterly reject, therefore, the main burden of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that it is only in this country that this unfortunate tendency is to be noted.
That brings us to the problem of what we are to do. I was very pleased to be given a report of one very commendable activity. It came from the Australian and British Action Council. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred earlier to these developments in Australia but there are one or two details I would like to mention as this seems a very practical way of dealing with the problem.
The Council has been set up by the United Kingdom Committee of the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce and by Australian members of the Chambers of Commerce and Manufacturers. The report says:
… it was agreed that some fresh and positive machinery must be set up to undertake urgent action in tackling the problems of falling Australian and British trade. The formation of Action Councils in Australia and Britain in response to this decision has recently been announced. The Councils are to be representative of the major sectors of the economy in both countries and will be concerned with fostering friendship and understanding between


the Communities of the two countries and in particular with promoting and stimulating reciprocal trade and economic relations.
The report adds:
The Council has held a first meeting and sees as its main objects the projection in Australia of a modern image of Britain and in the U.K. the engendering among industrialist exporters and potential exporters to Australia a greater interest and more active market research in the Australian market.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also referred to the Commonwealth Economic Committee and the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. The Economic Committee has provided us with a wealth of material. I am most grateful to it for the figures I have obtained from its publications. I am not sure, however, that I detect in any of its publications evidence of great, overall strategic, forward thinking to deal with the problems mentioned today and one or two others to which I wish to refer.
I would first like to see the Consultative Council or a Commonwealth Economic Development Council considering the areas in which mutual trade could be engendered to the benefit of different parts of the Commonwealth. I do not believe that any of the bodies to which the Prime Minister referred are tackling that problem. If I am wrong, I should like to know, because I believe that if we can tackle the problems on that basis, we may have a method of increasing the strength of the trading links among different parts of the Commonwealth.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned the difficulty arising from production in countries where prices were rather lower than in other parts of the Commonwealth. This is another problem which must be solved. We have what are known as the old countries of the Commonwealth and the newer countries, and if the trade of the newer countries is to be only an embarrassment to the older and vice versa, that will not be a very favourable method of progress. I should like this council to tackle that problem, because I do not believe that it is insoluble. If the right economic thinking and effort are put into trying to make it possible for the old and newly developing countries to be mutually beneficial in their trading relationships, it would be a great help to all of us.
I found that views about commodity agreements varied considerably in different parts of the Commonwealth. There was not a great deal of enthusiasm for them in New Zealand, while in Australia they were better regarded, and when I returned to England I found that the President of the National Farmers' Union thought they were very good indeed. Whether we have commodity agreements, or however we solve these problems, the right approach would be at first to tackle them on a Commonwealth basis. After negotiations have begun, few commodity agreements could be kept entirely within the Commonwealth, because some of the major producers and some of the major consumers are outside it. Hardly any commodity agreement could be satisfactorily negotiated on a purely Commonwealth basis, but it is something which can most usefully be started as a Commonwealth activity.
A number of hon. Members have already dealt with stability for the producers of raw materials and the right hon. Member for Huyton also spoke about it and I need not develop that point.
Those are some of the problems which I would like to be referred to a council and dealt with urgently and responsibly. There are one or two other and smaller matters which should be considered. One of them concerns our trade commissioners in different parts of the Commonwealth. Some are doing a first-class job and I pay tribute to their work, but it would do no harm for my right hon. Friend to have a look at some of the others. If this organisation were considered, there might be a significant improvement in some quarters in the trade which results from this work. We have 68 trade commissioners in different parts of the Commonwealth and only 19 are being paid over £3,000 a year. Only one is getting £4,700. I very much doubt whether at those rates my right hon. Friend is likely to retain the best quality people in the service, and that is another matter which he might consider. Some countries, particularly in the Commonwealth, recall their trade officials to meet each other once every two years. That might be worth considering, because they then have an opportunity to find out what the overall problem is and


perhaps to find a better solution to their own problems.
How often do we send missions to different parts of the world to see what sort of trade we could find? I noted that in 1962, 20 trade missions came here from Canada, and while I was in Australia there were 12 missions going round different parts of the Pacific and elsewhere. One of these missions comprised 14 people of whom only four had visited the area before. Within six months of their return home, ten members of the mission had made one or more futher successful business trips to the part of the world which the mission had visited. I see a certain amount of the missions which come here from different parts of the Commonwealth, and I should like to feel that we were showing as much effort to find out what is going on in other places. The other side of the problem is dealt with in some parts of the Commonwealth by asking many people from various other countries who come to the Commonwealth country to see what is being manufactured and to be shown around. Some time ago, a party of 200 people from 53 different countries made such a trip to Canada.
What about exhibitions? There is an exhibition which is held in Toronto every year, the Canadian National Exhibition, which 3 million people visit to see what Canada is producing. Some time ago, the Canadian High Commissioner pointed out that there was a British Government building of 52,000 sq. ft. at that exhibition. I have been there on a number of occasions to find the building crammed with British produce and filled with people looking at it and, no doubt, making purchases in due course as a result. Last year, at the exhibition we had only 2,250 sq. ft. and we used it for showing films, while the Polish exhibitors had 7,500 sq. ft. That does not seem to be the best way to arrange for increased trade.
Then we must not overlook the importance of tourists. This trade could well be developed in different parts of the Commonwealth. The British Travel and Holidays Association, in a recent survey of visitors to this country said that 13,000 Canadians came here and spent £13 million and that three-quarters of

them spent all their time in the United Kingdom and that the average time they stayed here was 45 nights. This is an indication of what can be done, and I hope that more will be done to develop it.
I should like finally to add my support to what has been said by the Prime Minister and others about the excellent work being done by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Any support and encouragement which can be given to that body should be given to it. The very small sum of money given to that organisation to do its work every year provides the Government with the best value for any money it spends.
When I first came to the House eight years ago, I found that Canada, for example, had had for many years only one visit from two Members from this House, since then we have had two further delegations to Canada, each of two Members. There is an organisation in Ottawa which sends 20 Canadian Members of Parliament to Washington once a year, and then there is a return visit of Congressmen six months later. I am told that 75 per cent. of the last Canadian House of Commons had visited Washington. That has to be compared with the six Members from this House who have officially visited Canada in about fifteen years. If this work can be encouraged, then the better the understanding there is among Members of Parliament, the better the understanding there will be between the two countries.
In the Commonwealth we have one-quarter of the world's population, one-quarter of the world's trade and one-quarter of the land area. We have some of the fastest expanding populations in the world, and if we set about these problems with the fervour which they deserve, there can be great increases in Commonwealth trade.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: For three and a half hours this afternoon we saw the House of Commons at its best. During Question Time there was deep cut and thrust; there were points of order which Mr. Speaker firmly dealt with, and held the balance between one side and the other. Then we listened to a reasoned speech made


by the Prime Minister from the Conservative point of view. After that, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) made an analytical, informative and brilliant speech. It was a speech that will become historic, and it will be the basis for the foundation of Commonwealth reconstruction and reinforcement which must be taken in the mid-twentieth century if Britain is to hold its own in the world. The logic of the speech of my right hon. Friend is that at the next General Election people will be asked to vote for Labour and the Commonwealth Party.
The Prime Minister, in opening the debate, made a number of points which I was pleased to hear, and about which I shall attempt to make some constructive proposals. I wondered, during that speech, why no action had been taken on what was said this afternoon during the past 12 years. The Prime Minister said that the Commonwealth could become a working co-operative society. This is just what we want. This is what we have lived and worked for. He went on to say that we desired to forge all the links that we possibly can, and that the British market is one of the largest in the world. All the New Zealand and Australian farmers, when they hear that on the radio or read it in their newspapers, will say, "Hear, hear. The British people should remember what we have done for them in two world wars."
The Prime Minister said that we were going to use the machinery of the Commonwealth Consultative Committee during the Kennedy Round discussions. We welcome that. He also put forward proposals for a Commonwealth Economic Development Council. Others prefer only a consultative council. The Prime Minister is in the inner circles and when he says that we must accept it. But I should like to know how often we have taken the initiative to win over those who are against constructive proposals of that kind.
The Prime Minister went on to say that action councils were gradually being built up. I welcome this. I had read about them in the Australian Press. But I should like to know why we in this country are not encouraging cities and towns to take the initiative in a similar

way in order to co-operate with the action councils in Australia and New Zealand.
Then the Prime Minister said that we were seriously considering proposals for commodity agreements. I know that in Australia he will have the support of all thoughtful people for a proposal of that kind. Our own National Farmers' Union has several times put this constructive proposal on record in a number of its publications, and I shall welcome this proposal if it is to be carried out.
It was my privilege, which I never thought that I would have, to fly 40,000 miles, a year ago, to places in New Zealand and Australia. No matter what I do, I can never repay those who treated me so well during those months. In my young days in my area, and in the large industrial areas, it was common to have large families of 10 to 15 children. There was no insurance; there was large-scale unemployment; life was very insecure. Most of my cousins were driven to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We kept touch during two world wars, but little did I think that one day it would be my privilege to visit them in many parts of Australia.
That is why I have always been an uncompromising opponent of the Common Market and desirous, first, of building up trade with our own people who were driven to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Just as we work together in this House for the benefit of our fellow-countrymen, so we should be doing the same in the Commonwealth, and, as a result of reinforcing the Commonwealth, negotiate from economic strength with those countries who are prepared to be friendly with us in all parts of the world.
Therefore, I was pleased when the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend made such constructive proposals. Although they differed on some things they had a good deal in common, and I hope that the House of Commons, when it is re-elected, will be determined that we shall shake ourselves out of our complacent attitude towards the Commonwealth and pursue the constructive rôle that has been laid down this afternoon. It is on these lines that we should be working. Our cousins in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, in two world wars, have responded to our needs. In the


First World War we were subject to the terrible menace of the submarine. In the Second World War we were bombed nightly and our food supply was constantly in jeopardy.
It was New Zealand, in particular, which put our needs first. She never took advantage of world increasing prices. She continued to supply us with food at the normal prices, negotiated prior to the war. It seemed that during the Common Market negotiations too many people in this country forgot what we owed to New Zealand and Australia in particular.
Therefore, when we talk about the Commonwealth, as the Prime Minister did, we have to remember that there is such a word as reciprocity. But it is not one-way traffic. We owe something to them as well as they to us. I hope that as a result of this debate we shall brush away the cobwebs which have been hiding our weaknesses so that we can take action to strengthen ourselves in the way that we should.
While I was in New Zealand I met a man who, though small in stature, is a giant. I am referring to Walter Nash, who was the Prime Minister. He took me to his home on several occasions. It was a great privilege, a thrill, and an education. He told me something that I ought to have remembered, but I plead guilty to having forgotten it. He said that during the war he was a member of the War Cabinet and had served in London. The thought that immediately occurred to me was that if it was right for his to be a member of the Commonwealth War Cabinet, surely it was right to have a Commonwealth Economic Cabinet in peace time so that we could prepare economic plans; so that we could negotiate with other countries from a position of strength, and so that we could build up the Commonwealth as it should be built up.
Too many people forget that Australia is not an ordinary country. It is a mighty continent. It is nine-tenths the size of the United States, and what the United States can do Australia can do. We are an industrial country, with a teeming population of nearly 60 million, which, according to official prophecies, will rise to 70 million within the next 20 years. We therefore have everything

to gain by building along the lines that have been suggested this afternoon.
I spent six days in Geelong, which is about 50 miles from Melbourne. I never realised that I knew so many people. Scores of them had been victimised in this country. Scores of them had been unemployed and lost hope, and as a result had migrated to Australia. They went there from London, Birmingham, Glasgow and other centres. Most of them knew me when I was a young man, but I had forgotten them. They took me to their homes night after night. All the neighbours gathered round and we had a wonderful time. None of these people desires to return home to these shores, yet they all put this country first. They have enormous good will for us.
There is a greater shortage of skilled men in those countries than in any other part of the world. Many of the people whom I met said that they would like to transplant large parts of England—I suppose I had better say Scotland as well, to be on the safe side—to Australia. They all desire British firms to open up there. They all admire the way in which we are winning through in this country. They all admired the way in which we stood up to events during the war. We ought to capitalise on their admiration rather than discourage them, as we have been doing during the past few years.
I have a great respect for the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade. I have seen him at work as Chief Whip, and in other offices. There are no personal differences between us. He put an enormous amount of energy into the Common Market negotiations, and I should like the Government to ask him, or other right it hon. Gentlemen who are members of the Cabinet and have the privilege of serving the country, to put a similar amount of energy into negotiating with the Commonwealth so that we can build it up in the same way as we were trying to build up the Common Market.
I hope that no one will misunderstand me. I want to be friends with every country in the world. We have suffered too much through not wanting to be friends. Many of my contemporaries were killed at an early age, and I do not want to experience the agony of


another war. Any contribution towards peace has my support, but in my view the best way to achieve that is in a constructive, organised, way, and the best contribution that Britain can make is to win over the whole of the Commonwealth and be able to negotiate from strength. When Britain takes her place at an international conference, instead of differing amongst ourselves, as all the big countries do, she should speak from strength, and with one voice, on behalf of the Commonwealth.
Some people say that it will never be possible to get the countries of the Commonwealth to agree. My answer to them is,
Oh thou of little faith.
It has been done in other respects. This country has a long pioneering tradition. What has been done with regard to constitutional government of the kind that we have at local, county, and national level, can be done in the Commonwealth. As a result of strengthening the Commonwealth, we could go to the United Nations and speak with more authority than we have done in the past.
As a result of my thoughts, some weeks ago I tabled a series of Questions. They were answered last week, and I was a little disappointed with the replies I received. As a result of the Montreal Conference, a number of publications were issued. I have read many of them, but I cannot say that I have read most of them, because I do not know how many there are. I give credit to everyone who contributed towards the publication of those documents. They make excellent reading, and the logical step is to use them as a specification for preparing plans along the lines that I am suggesting.
Western Australia is planning to harness its tidal waters. Why were not we informed of that? I spent a day with one of the greatest authorities in the country. He was poring over large-scale drawings of the Severn Barrage, which was one of the finest schemes in the history of man. It would have been a great asset to this country, but, because the Government of the day were limiting expenditure on capital development of that kind, the scheme was never put into effect. A similar scheme has been carried out in France. Western Australia

is preparing to do it, but it is a French consortium that is preparing the specifications, drawings and designs.
The time has come when we cannot allow the needs of our export trade and the needs of our Commonwealth links to be left in the hands of private individual firms. It should be the responsibility of the Government to invite a number of large electrical firms to form themselves into a consortium, along with civil engineers, to enter into competition with any other firm in the world.
That was the purpose behind many of my Questions, because Australia and New Zealand have some of the richest and best iron ore mines in the world. Much of the iron ore is being exported to Japan. Why have we not made arrangements to import it here? If we can bring oil from South Arabia, from Kuwait, and from the Middle East, to this country, we ought to be able to build big enough ships to bring iron ore here from Australia. In my view, we should start negotiations as soon as possible with they Government of Western Australia, who have iron ore in abundance, to be sent to this country in the most modern and largest ships. We would find the Western Australian Government most sympathetic to our request that they should facilitate the making of mutually satisfactory arrangements of that kind.
One of the greatest needs of Australia is water. Large-scale capital expenditure schemes to harness power for electric light and to use some of the water for irrigation purposes [...] being prepared. This is an example of how large-scale civil engineering is being harnessed to electrical engineering, and we have some of the finest engineers in the world. I would have hoped that the Cabinet would take the initiative and form a consortium of these people, together with financial corporations in the City, so that we could make a greater contribution on the lines that I have indicated.
The people among whom I moved received me with exceptional cordiality. I never felt more at home than I did in Australia, although in many parts I was among strangers. I never thought that this cordiality was expressed for me as an individual; it was because they


realised that I was a man from the heart of industrial Britain—a man representing the ordinary people of this country, one of themselves. We should learn a lesson from that. I believe that this attitude could be reflected in terms of an arrangement to build up our links so that we could make the Commonwealth much greater than it now is.
What I have said about Australia and New Zealand applies equally to Canada and India. I have documentary evidence to show that the people of India are now more friendly towards us than ever before, although they can build up a terrible indictment of the way that we treated them at Amritsar and many other places. But although they are now so friendly towards us, I read that a German consortia is doing the work in India that we should be doing on a large scale.
In March, a conference is to be held in Geneva, under the auspices of the United Nations, where the world's representatives will discuss proposals for the expansion of world trade. Although the two sides of the House differ politically I hope that the Government will appoint representatives with a wide outlook, and real vision, so that we shall not be drawn into discussing narrow issues of a pettifogging personal character. These are the days for a display of real manhood and courage—for vision and constructive proposals. I hope that the British representatives will go to the Geneva conference with the idea of putting forward constructive proposals, so that we shall not only benefit the world, but will ourselves achieve a greater proportion of world trade.
At the same time, I hope that our representatives will establish close contacts with Commonwealth representatives, and will make them aware of the feeling of this Parliament, so that as a result of our discussions there we shall be able to speak at the conference with a united voice, and make constructive proposals. We shall then be able to take the greatest step forward for many years, not only for our own benefit but also in terms of making a great contribution towards the needs of the whole world.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. John Harvey: This is not the first occasion on which I have been privileged to follow

the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith). His honest-to-goodness sincerity of purpose and his down-to-earth eloquence are such as to impress us all and to encourage us to forgive him for his occasional departures into the realms of party interests.
I tried to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, because in November I was privileged, together with nine other Members from both sides of this House, to represent this Parliament at the meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Kuala Lumpur. In a sense, some of what I shall say will be a report of that conference. It was an impressive affair. It was a week-long conference at which members of virtually every Parliament and legislative assembly in the Commonwealth spoke, or had the opportunity to speak. I had the good fortune to catch the Chairman's eye on three successive days, which was a far greater measure of generosity than a Member usually manages to encounter in this Chamber. The conference was none the worse—indeed, it was immeasurably better—for the fact that our Malaysian hosts allowed us to use their brand-new House of Commons. We were able to meet in the Chamber there for our debates, and this created an extremely good atmosphere.
Apart from the Conference, we toured Malaysia together in four groups. Members of different Parliaments and of different races travelled around together, and at the end of it we found that, whatever might be the differences that divided us, the things that united us were immeasurably greater and counted for very much more. It is important that this House should take stock of that sort of thing.
As usual, the Leader of the Opposition made an interesting speech today. He made a number of suggestions which would find favour on both sides of the House. If, in the fulness of time, some of them can be implemented, he will doubtless again claim that he thought of them first. In self-defence, I must point out that in a HANSARD of five or six years ago he will be able to find a suggestion  made that, whatever the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association does for the unity of Parliamentarians and parliaments of the Commonwealth—and it does a great deal, and I


should like to see infinitely more support given to it—we have still not achieved for the Commonwealth what the Council of Europe has achieved for Europe.
If we could find ways and means of uniting the Parliamentarians of the Commonwealth more closely in some regular assembly it would be a considerable boon to us all. It would help still further to widen the scope of understanding and to remove the causes of misunderstanding. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman has repeated this afternoon a suggestion that I made a few years ago gives me cause for considerable pleasure.
Those of us who went to Malaysia were greatly impressed with what we saw there. It is an inspiration to the Commonwealth, this country of 10 million people, because it consists of three races consciously working together for the good of their country; three races, all with quite serious differences, trying to resolve those differences and to understand each other and make a determined effort to overcome all the problems. In this endeavour, these three races are not scared by the bogy of neocolonialism. They are prepared to assert themselves for Malaysia, but they also recognise that they have a lot to learn from other more advanced countries.
They are willing to have us there in partnership with them. As far as I can see, we are being sensible and enlightened in accepting that we are training the people in the arts and crafts that should build the prosperity of Malaysia tomorrow. We are helping them the better to be able to run their own country and to shape their own destiny. In many ways Malaysia is a powerful example of what the future of the Commonwealth Association as a whole can and must be.
When talking to Members of Parliament from other Commonwealth countries, one finds that, great as their need for aid may be, they want, rightly and understandably, to see the emphasis put on trade rather than aid wherever that can be done. So I will deal, first, with certain questions of trade.
We must recognise that there are different patterns right across the Commonwealth,

in the older Commonwealth countries and in the new, but an intermixture all the way of a need to protect one's own infant industries from imports and a need to protect one's exports against all sorts of competition, fair or perhaps unfair. Inevitably, the interest in commodity prices and agreements is considerable in many parts of the Commonwealth, although we should guard against the assumption that commodity agreements of themselves are simple matters.
If we fix commodity agreements at an artifically high level, or at a level which may become artifically high, we encourage someone else to produce the same sort of commodity and to compete with and undermine the agreement which has already been made. It remains true that diversification must be among the most important of the aims of the nations in the Commonwealth.
To nations which have only just started to trade on any scale, diversification is something for the future. But it is important. In discussing trade, I should like to deal for a moment with some of the figures which were given today by the Leader of the Opposition. When he allowed me to interrupt him, I suggested that it was so easy to mislead by giving casual figures and percentages. I acquit the right hon. Gentleman of any desire deliberately to mislead the House. But when using figures in a debate it is very difficult to convey everything which ought to be conveyed.
Does it really matter all that much whether the overall pattern of Commonwealth trade was X-per cent. in one year and Y-per cent. in another? Is it part of our intention to try to put Commonwealth trade into a little straitjacket of its own in isolation from all other types of trade? Or is what really matters the total growth in the volume of trade right through the Commonwealth? It is all just as—

Mr. Shinwell: But that is precisely what members of the Tory Party did during the controversy about the Common Market. They sought to denigrate the Commonwealth because there had been a decline in the volume of Commonwealth trade. They used statistics all along the line. I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Figures do not matter


a great deal. It is the general volume of trade, not only in the Commonwealth. But the hon. Gentleman must not point the finger of scorn at Members on this side of the House. He should turn his eyes in the direction of his hon. Friends.

Mr. Harvey: I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman has followed what I was saying. The Leader of the Opposition tried to suggest that under a Labour Administration the total volume of Commonwealth trade was greater in percentage than it is today. Even if it were true, is that what really matters? Surely what really matters is whether Commonwealth countries as a whole are doing more trade as a whole today. Not necessarily with other parts of the Commonwealth, but more trade—full stop. In other words, if the gross national product is greater than it was, if the standard of living is higher than it was, that is what really matters far more than how the trade is done.
The other quarrel which I had with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was when he sought to give vastly impressive figures showing how the Germans, Italians, Swiss and Americans are contributing so much more to the Commonwealth today than we are. When I intervened during his speech and said that what we had to remember was the total volume of British investment right through the Commonwealth, there was a roar from hon. Members opposite and one or two hon. Gentlemen suggested that I should sit down. As I thought that my intervention had in any case been long enough, I obliged them. But I return now to the argument.
I do not know why any reference to investment should automatically attract a roar of derision from hon. Gentlemen opposite. Some of the hon. Gentlemen who are on the benches opposite now may take another view. A factory built somewhere in the Commonwealth becomes part of the investment in the Commonwealth. The simple argument which I was trying to make was that if through the years that have gone by most of the investment in the Commonwealth happens to be investment which we have made, it is quite unfair to compare the subsequent growth in the volume of our trade with that of the trade of Germany or France with the Commonwealth today.
What we have to compare in order to get a fair comparison is the total amount of our trade going into the Commonwealth—the total amount of our investment going in—with the total amount of theirs; and not to take a "phoney" figure which represents an increment of ours, forgetting what has gone on in the past, and comparing that with the completely fresh start to this sort of investment made today by other countries in Western Europe.

Mr. Jay: Surely it would be a bad argument to say that because we have invested heavily—as we have—in the past, we must therefore expect our share of trade to decline in the future?

Mr. Harvey: I am not suggesting that for a moment. I am saying that if we have built factories there, as part of our fixed investment, which are producing goods there today rather than in this country, we cannot also be sending goods from this country as well. A country which has never traded with the Commonwealth territories before could and would be doing that. Let us get the basis of comparison right. The basis put forward by the Leader of the Opposition was utterly wrong, and if the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) is adopting the same basis he is as wrong as his Leader. I will not pursue the argument further, because I do not wish to become too involved in party political differences. I wish to try to be constructive.
The Prime Minister said that we must seek to provide each other with the maximum opportunities for trading in the Commonwealth. I think that would command assent from hon. Members on both sides of the House. A lot has been said about the Common Market. I do not dissent for a moment from the assertion that the Common Market negotiations placed a considerable strain on traditional Commonwealth loyalties. This was largely due to the misunderstanding about what we were trying to achieve. Hon. Members opposite, in an election year, have found a sort of unity about their attitude to the Common Market. But they should not forget that this never was originally a party argument. It was one which cut right across traditional party lines. As it happens, the very fact that the whole negotiations could not be made public


at the time when they were going on, resulted in rumours which caused people to fear the worst. I think it wrong—and one day it will be seen to have been wrong—to suggest that my right hon. Friend in any way sold any sort of Commonwealth pass in those discussions.
The point must be made that if we had been willing to sell Commonwealth interests down the river we would have had no difficulty in getting into the Common Market. It was de Gaulle's intransigence with our constant insistence on reaching compromise—not on giving way—in which they had to give as much as we, his intransigence with our attitude over that led him in the end to break off the negotiations. What we must recognise today is that large numbers of the British people could see no useful purpose in trying to restart negotiations with the Common Market—let us be frank about this—while de Gaulle remains in charge of the destinies of France and, therefore, there seems no point in going on wasting time in this particular direction in these particular circumstances.
Therefore, the Prime Minister's suggestion this afternoon that we should consciously within the Commonwealth seek to provide each other with maximum opportunities for trade is precisely what we should now give priority. We should go ahead in trying to reach real and effective agreements with all those different parts of the Commonwealth willing to reach them with us. If ever we find it a reasonable proposition again to negotiate with Europe it should be only against the background of agreement we have reached in today's circumstances with the Commonwealth and its interests as they are today and will be in the future. This could be a reasonable solution to an otherwise quite intractable problem.
In the development of Commonwealth trade there is no doubt—this came up time and time again in the conference at Kuala Lumpur—that expertise and information matter a great deal to the developing countries. We must welcome everything that can be done and that is to be done to make more technicians available to those countries to build up a service on which they will be able to draw for the experts that they want.

We must welcome the young volunteers, the young teachers who are prepared to go out and to give one, two or three years in their early lives to helping in the Commonwealth. That will do them immense good and it will do the Commonwealth immense good.
We must seek deliberately to widen opportunities for travel and work within the Commonwealth, for constructive endeavour by each and every one of us able and willing to contribute something, because there is no doubt that what so much of the Commonwealth needs is the type of technical aid and advice on which it can build itself up. Provided it gets aid and advice it will build and profit by it, and we shall profit by it because we shall have an increasingly self-reliant Commonwealth, which, after all, is what the stability and peace of the world will greatly benefit from.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) touched on the question of trade commissioners and commercial counsellors in various Commonwealth countries. Some of them are excellent, but when we travel round the local business communities we find they have grave doubts about the excellence of some others. What we need more than anything else is increasingly to create a commercial service within which these people will feel their whole future to exist. One of the real difficulties of the moment is that so many of them feel that they are out on a limb serving commerce and trade. They want to get back into the main stream of C.R.O. work, Foreign Office work or Board of Trade work, and do not want to stay out on that limb for too long. That is an important point.
My hon. Friend also talked about an exhibition in Canada. I make the suggestion that the President of the Board of Trade should consider the possibilities of a Commonwealth exhibition which would tour the world. A Commonwealth exhibition could show in Washington or Moscow the things that the Commonwealth has available to sell and the services the Commonwealth has available to give. Might it not in return attract investment to the Commonwealth once the opportunities of the Commonwealth became more widely evident?
There is not the least doubt that we shall have to find better methods of concerting ways in which aid is made available. The fact that at the moment once again we find that not nearly all the aid we are prepared to make available, limited as it is in relation to the need, is fully taken up shows that present methods are not working effectively. That may not be our fault. On the other hand, we have somehow to try to give more co-ordination to it all. At the moment there is individual action, largely by our own country and France, in relation to their former Colonial Territories. There is a certain amount of co-ordination and concerted action, in which we all join, which goes beyond our former Colonial Territories and outside the Commonwealth. It must do so because problems of aid in South America, for instance, are little less important than they are in the Commonwealth.
We have the American concept of aid which is largely a question of buying off Communism. This outlook on aid must change. We have now moved beyond the question of buying off Communism. We have to invest in the future by world organisation, the aim of which the Nigerians put so splendidly at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference when they said, "Towards a future more abundant". There is something in that. This is what we are all aiming at. We should all join in trying to see that we can achieve it as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible.
Science must play its part, as has been suggested this afternoon, for production is vital. We saw in Malaysia a fisheries research institute in which up to now the average production of fresh water fish has been 20 lb. per acre and it has proved possible to produce 2,000 lb. of fish per acre. That is an institute for which our Government are responsible. I say "our Government" not in any partisan sense, because the blueprints for it were prepared when hon. Members opposite were in office and it went forward when we took over from them.
This increased production has been brought about, I gather, by cross-breeding certain strains of fish. It was eventually found that if one can separate the male from the female the male grows very much larger. There is probably

a moral in that somewhere. Then it was found that a particular type of cross-breed invariably bred males and it was no longer necessary to sort out the males from the females among the young. It is now possible to breed a fish which is invariably male and to get 2,000 lb, of fish per acre.
No sooner had this been achieved than a tremendous drought set in and all the ponds went dry. We who go around leaving water taps running forget the immense value that water is to man. Those of us who have seen in Malacca and Hong Kong the miseries in which people live through lack of water know that although it is unpopular to suggest that a tax or levy should be specifically attached to a specific purpose we would all be happy to pay something which we knew would go in aid to parts of the world which need it so much. I sometimes think that we who can turn taps on so easily should not grumble too much if a jolly good impost was put on our water rates, in the knowledge that the money would go to provide other people with the water which is their lifeblood, because we sometimes have almost too much of it.
No one has so far mentioned the population explosion. In the present five-year plan it is the aim of the Indian Government to create 13 million new jobs. This is an impressive aim. A study of the figures shows, however, that in the same five years they will be creating 25 million new Indians. Even when trying to run one cannot keep pace with the problem. This is a realm in which science and education still have a great deal to contribute. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister mentioned television. There are villages in India where the arrival of a wireless set to which the community can listen is a remarkable thing. Television has a great part to play in education, in teaching. Some countries have a long way to go before they will even reach television.
There is no doubt in my mind that we must find ways of better concerting the aid that it lies in our power to give. I refer not me rely to this country but to Western countries as a whole, not merely to Western countries but to countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which can join in this aid giving. We


must find better ways of concerting the aid, whether it be money aid, aid in kind, or aid in technical experience and assistance.
The Commonwealth is the natural agency through which this country and certain other Commonwealth countries should try to build up the aid they can give. I cannot help feeling that we have not done enough yet to interest the Commonwealth as a whole in what could be done if we set our minds to it. In Malaysia we saw the operations rooms which had been used to fight the terrorists in what was called "The Emergency". Those operations rooms have been turned into planning rooms to plan Malaysia's agricultural development. The new roads, the new irrigation schemes, the new bridges—everything is graphically obvious in these planning rooms. One can see everything, in Kuala Lumpur and in each of the State capitals. This indeed is a case of beating swords into ploughshares.
I believe that there is much to be said for taking this concept a great deal further. Why could not we have a planning room in each Commonwealth capital, showing the needs of the Commonwealth as a whole, with a sub-planning room in areas showing what needs to be done over areas? Then there could be a local planning room in the countries concerned. In this way we could contrive ways and means of weaving the whole complex pattern into something that seems attractive in its aim, something that we can see happening as we go along.
However this may be, the need for aid is great. India alone needs about £500 million a year. I mention India because its population is the greatest of those with which we are concerned, but India is not the only country that we are talking about. Government and private contributions—

Mr. Henry Clark: Has my hon. Friend by any chance signed the Motion which stands on the Order Paper suggesting that five minute speeches at this stage in debates would be a very good idea?

Mr. Harvey: I have not signed such a Motion. On the other hand, if my hon. Friend will look at HANSARD he

will find that it is quite a time since I sought to catch the eye of the Chair. I never seek to intervene in a debate unless I feel I have something that can be usefully said.
I have only one more point to make, but I should like to make it. The co-ordination of the aid that we need to give must come under one Ministry if that is to be most effectively given. I should like to see some constructive thought given to this. I believe that the Department for Technical Co-operation could and should be expanded into a Ministry that is responsible for the whole of this question. I believe that there is the will right through the Commonwealth to develop aid and integrate effort. I believe that the need requires only to be given the impetus, and I believe that the impetus must fundamentally come from London. I believe that we shall find willing response if we now go ahead and give as vigorous an impulse to the development of aid and trade in the Commonwealth as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade has sought to give in other directions in the last year or two.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Foley: I hope that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey) will forgive me if I do not follow his arguments too closely. I want to deal especially with the developing countries of the Commonwealth, because I believe that this is the real challenge. If the Commonwealth means anything to us, the real challenge is to bridge the gap between rich and poor, between hope and despair.
Reference has been made to the proposed conference in Geneva on world trade and development. The countries from the developing areas and from the Commonwealth which attend this conference will go there hoping that they will come away with some agreement. This is the kind of thing that happens at every international conference, but this is a matter of their very existence. In the 10-year period 1950–60 the share of world trade of the less developed countries fell from 30 per cent. to 20 per cent. The average price that they received for their exports remained virtually the same. However, the average


price of the goods they imported rose significantly. In terms of trade, the figures declined by 9 per cent.
The vast majority of Commonwealth and other countries are developing countries and are dependent upon primary produce. Ninety per cent. of the exports of developing countries consists of primary produce. These countries are, therefore, vitally concerned with decisions related to the control of prices and commodity agreements. They will, and do, suffer if there is any fluctuation in demand or price. They are the ones who feel it immediately.
In the context of the world problem we in the Commonwealth are placed in a unique position to give a commanding lead. If the Commonwealth means anything to us, we should not look upon ourselves merely as the consumers, with a traditional attitude of wanting to keep prices down. We should also look on the matter with the eyes of the producer, the man who wants some knowledge of what kind of markets he will get, who wants long-term agreements, who wants stability in prices, who needs foreign currency to buy the imports he so vitally reeds to diversify his economy. These are issues of vital concern to every developing country.
Failure to agree on these matters will produce, and has already produced, discord and dissatisfaction. Last October, two Commonwealth countries, Ghana and Nigeria, were involved in discussions on cocoa. They broke down. There was failure to agree. Yet to our Commonwealth countries this is a matter of vital concern to the livelihood of their people. When we talk from the lofty heights of this country—from our vast experience and the wealth of Britain—we tend to forget that a fluctuation in the price of cocoa can mean the difference between going under and surviving For these people.
I regret that I did not sense in the Prime Minister's speech the need for urgency in this matter; the realisation of the divisions that exist in the world and the necessity to solve these problems. There was a vague reference to commodity agreements, but that sort of thing is not good enough if we are to build up a multi-racial Commonwealth. I look forward to a new initiative coming from Britain, prior to the conference

in Geneva, so that hope will be given to the developing countries.
Many people have said that one cannot separate trade from aid. I would put trade first, because it is fundamental to countries which are beginning to get on their feet. Aid is the stimulus to this, but one should never be seen as the substitute for the other. A few weeks ago I was in East Africa, in Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar, I, too, join in paying tribute to the way in which the British Government readily responded to the requests for help from Commonwealth countries.
I also applaud the way in which our troops behaved. Whatever people may say about tome of the African leaders, their requests for aid show that despite their attitudes on some matters, they are prepared, when in need, to turn to us, It reveals that despite everything that has happened in the past they are willing to state publicly, before all the forums of African influence, that they need us. It is equally peasant to know that we are there when we are wanted.
The concerns of these countries are the problems of most other African and developing countries. They are newly independent and are building nations out of various tribes and religions, with artificial frontiers and a welter of languages. They are trying to make themselves a unity. They are trying to tackle problems of poverty, misery and sickness, but, above all, they are trying to do all these things with a lack of skilled personnel and without proper economic and administrative experience. The amazing thing is that there is still the will, effort and energy in these places to build-up their countries.
If we look carefully at recent events we do ourselves a disservice if we label them all Communist. We do the Commonwealth countries a disservice, too, because it shows that we have not made the effort to understand their difficulties. Above all, we do ourselves a disservice, when we read in the Press that this or that committee, of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, refuses to send money to Zanzibar. Or, for instance, that the Foreign Minister in Tanganyika is a Communist. Three months ago he was invited to address American academics in San Francisco on African affairs. Unless we receive from Her Majesty's


Government a statement of concern for the real problems involved there we will, perhaps by implication, be saying that this is a Communist plot.
I have talked with many African leaders. Some of them have stayed with me in my home and I have stayed with them. I am aware of their desire to make a go of their independence. If one reads the Report of the Afro-Asian Conference in Moshi one reads how Julius Nyerere referred to the dangers that could lie ahead for Africa. He was not referring to the former colonisers, but to others who were wanting to subvert the country. Having worked and fought hard for their independence, they do not have the slightest intention or desire to give it over to someone else.
This is not to minimise the extent of Communist penetration, though it must be remembered that for every person who has gone behind the Iron Curtain from any of these countries, 10 or 20 have come to Britain for training in our universities. We must keep this in its right perspective. The kind of people who go behind the Iron Curtain are not of the educational standard to come to a British university.
The real lesson to be learned is that Communism and subversion grow and thrive on discontent and great social problems. It must equally be remembered that in Zanzibar now there are boys and girls with O-level G.C.E.s who are unemployed, and that one quarter of the police force from the mainland, is on a year's notice to go back. One must consider these things and examine them carefully. Having examined them, can one say with certainty that this is a carefully planned Communist plot; or can we learn the lesson that these countries are in their infancy of independence and need all the help, thought and encouragement that we can give them?
If we are to make an effort to look at the world through their eyes, to be more sensitive in our thinking about their needs and the kind of aid they want, we must ensure that we fully understand their needs. We must look again at the personnel of our High Commissioners in these areas and consider whether or not they are the right sort

of people. Do they know about the social infrastructure of these places? In the creation of a nation there must be women's organisations, co-operatives, community development, and so on.
Are we satisfied that our machinery for responding to requests for aid is oiled and sufficient to react quickly, or is it too cumbersome? We must also make imaginative efforts to harness the latent energy of the people in Britain—to encourage them to think in terms of the needs of the developing areas. I do not think that we have done this. I do not see this exclusively as a Government or voluntary effort, for there is need for both to work together. While we may appeal to our young people to do this work, let us not forget the potentialities of older people, even those who have reached retiring age.
Lusaka, the capital of Northern Rhodesia, will probably contain 30 to 40 embassies from various parts of the world when the town becomes independent this year. Who will plan the town? Who will design it, determine the kind of structures it should have, and so on? I am sure that somewhere in Britain there is a town planner who is retiring soon, but who considers himself a young enough 60-year-old to go out there and use his experience and creative skills to help in the development of this town.
This is a small example of what can be done. Above all, if we really believe in the Commonwealth, if we want to see it as something which transcends frontiers and as a new concept, we must have the right kind of motives. It is not a question of charity, or of appealing to people—a sort of blackmail; that once they have responded to an appeal for help they can return to the "telly". It is more a question of conscience, morality and of having a proper spirit of justice and equity as a basis for our action. This requires a great deal of educational effort. That is why I say that if we can harness the latent talent in this country and have our finger on the pulse of the urgent needs of the developing areas we can really make something great out of this concept.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Henry Clark: I must begin by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow,


East (Mr. J. Harvey)—perhaps my intervention was a little unfair. This has been an excellent debate and it is one in which I am extremely anxious to take part.
I want to take up the point mentioned by the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Foley) about the staffing of our Commonwealth Relations Office and of our High Commissions abroad. Can the Minister tell the House whether it is still true that no encouragement whatsoever is given within the Commonwealth Relations Office to members of the staff to learn Commonwealth languages? And will he remember that only about 10 per cent. of Commonwealth people speak English?
It seemed inevitable that someone or other—and it was the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—would drag into what has otherwise been an excellent debate the question of the Common Market negotiations—

Mr. John Stonehouse: But the hon. Member will agree that those Common Market negotiations were absolutely crucial to the future of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Clark: But they are over.
The one thing that those negotiations did was to make us look very closely at the Commonwealth. We saw it, warts and all, and lost many of our illusions. The Common Market negotiations were, perhaps, responsible for the very down-to-earth and workmanlike speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about the Commonwealth as it is and as it could be, and not about a Commonwealth as we might dream it to be.
I particularly welcomed my right hon. Friend's announcement of a Commonwealth approach to the Kennedy Round and to the U.N.O. World Economic Conference. It is very important that a combination of advanced countries and underdeveloped countries in the Commonwealth should put over at that conference the very simple proposition, which I think we must accept, that the economics of the 'thirties, or even of the Ottawa Conference, or primary producers supplying primary products and getting manufactured goods in return—the sort of simple economics that we read in our first geography book—is not

enough to solve the problems of Commonwealth or of world trade today.
How many hon. Members saw in the newspaper today the report that, for the first time—and this is a sign of the times—United Kingdom consumption of synthetic textiles has exceeded its consumption of raw cotton? More and more, we shall produce our own raw materials in this country, as we are producing more and more of our food. The F.A.O. projections for European agriculture show that in 20 years' time the only commodity Europe will really need to import in bulk will be timber. We must tell the underdeveloped countries as firmly and as kindly as we can that they must not look to us to go on buying more and more of their produce, because we cannot do it, and if they are to base their development plans on that thought, those plans will fail.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine), in his very excellent speech, really got the gist of the problem when he talked about completing the rim of a wheel that now has only a hub and spokes. I believe that with Commonwealth initiative, we could institute a series of small regional economic conferences, starling with the Commonwealth members only in a particular region and, one hopes, spreading out to other nations. One can immediately think of half-a-dozen interlocking arrangements between Commonwealth countries—Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australasia; Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and Canada; the one that I perhaps know better—India and East Africa: and, on the other side, perhaps West Africa and the West Indies tying up, again, with the West Indies and Canada. If, with ourselves as a partner, we could instigate small down-to-earth conferences of a few nations to see where trade could be developed, we might be getting somewhere.
We all agree that trade is better than aid. One of the best ways of looking at the under-developed countries is to think of them as being in a state of permanent slump. It is not simply that the means of supplying are lacking; in many cases the basis of supply is there, and the real problem is that demand is absolutely minimal, and the supply will never develop unless the demand conces at the same time.
When we take the Commonwealth grouping, we can put India, which is desperately short of food, next door to East Africa, with a huge potential of food production. When we then find that India has at present a favourable balance of trade with East Africa, but that many East African products are prevented from entering India because of currency control, one really begins to think that there is tremendous scope for developing this regional grouping. It need not be exclusively Commonwealth. If India and East Africa can make agreements, why not bring in Madagascar, Afghanistan or Burma? They could make up this pattern, which I think would work.
Let us see where our part in these groupings could come in. It is frequently said nowadays that it is a sin that we in the Western civilised world should have surpluses of food, while, in other parts, people are going hungry. It is a sin, but the solution is not to ship the food from here to there. We in Europe have such knowledge that 7 per cent. of our population can grow enough food for the rest, and the real tragedy is that, having that knowledge, we have not yet imparted it to the rest of the world. It is knowledge of agriculture not agricultural produce, crossing thousands of miles, that will solve the problem of freedom from hunger.
This country has the expertise, and by giving it to East Africa so that East Africa can grow the food that India needs so badly, and by doing the same kind of thing in a hundred other cases, we can get away from the old elementary pattern of primary products being exchanged for manufactured goods, get down to steadily-growing diversified trade, and so solve a Commonwealth problem and do away with a great deal of poverty in the world.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: The trouble about the Commonwealth is that we all take it for granted. It is an entity that has existed for many years, and we naturally expect it to continue. Indeed, there are some hon. Members who expect it to continue in its present form, but they forget that the world is changing. There has been a vast transformation. There is a reorientation

in the Commonwealth itself, and it is to that factor that we must direct our attention.
The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark) spoke about the advance in production in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It is true that there are surpluses of food in some parts of the world but that, in other parts, people suffer from malnutrition and there is lack of consumption, but that is a world economic problem. The disparity between production and consumption is the basis of the world's social problem, so let us make no excessive argument about it.
The fact is that we in the United Kingdom, for our own survival as a first-class industrial nation, have to go to the help of the Commonwealth nations, and of the under-developed and backward nations in other parts of the world. There is compassion in this—that is natural—but it is also a question of self-interest. We must understand that, and we must be realistic. It has been said today that what we want for the Commonwealth countries, and what the Commonwealth countries themselves want—whether they are independent, or about to be independent—is not aid, but trade. When that statement is made, it creates a good deal of interest and attracts considerable applause, but there are some parts of the Commonwealth where now, immediately, they want aid, and trade is of no immediate value to them.
Recently, in company with some of my hon. colleagues from both sides of the House, I had the privilege of visiting the West Indies. There was a barrage of hospitality, which, of course, we appreciated. I would not go as far as to say that it was an orgy of hospitality, because that might be regarded as inimical to the interests of the country and the people concerned. In the course of our travels we visited Tobago. The devastation and destruction, which was the consequence of a hurricane that occurred last September, is almost indescribable. It is no use talking about trade for them. They want aid, and they want it at once. If they do not receive it immediately they will continue to suffer and they will be unable to make even a modest beginning on the rehabilitation of that island.
If I may quote Voltaire, perhaps to the surprise of hon. Members, we ought


to be much more concerned with the misfortunes of others than in cultivating our own garden. That appears to be an exclusively compassionate attitude, but there are elements of self-interest and self-enlightenment in what I have just observed. In other words, and I repeat it with emphasis and deliberation and, I hope, with understanding and judgment, unless we can raise consuming demand not only in the Commonwealth countries, but throughout the world, we shall not remain as great an industrial nation as, fortunately, we are at the present time.
This is the sum total of the argument. I can embroider it as some hon. Members have done, including the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey). He spoke at length, even excessive length, to the annoyance of his hon. Friends, to say nothing of the annoyance I felt. He indulged in what might be regarded as a postprandial oration. He brought in all sorts of petty-fogging points, the sort of material which one uses after an excellent lunch. He even included a reference to some kind of fish he had observed somewhere or other in the Commonwealth. This caused great laughter, but all this was immaterial to the subject under review, which is how we can raise consumption and improve Commonwealth relations, in other words, how we can help the Commonwealth to survive.
The Commonwealth is imperilled and menaced by enemies of an external character. Let us be realistic. It is even menaced and imperilled by some elements within the Commonwealth itself. Some relate to Ghana and what is happening there, some to Uganda, some to Zanzibar and to other places in the Commonwealth. They indicate that people there are not very happy about the United Kingdom or about the Commonwealth, except in so far as they can gain some aid from the United Kingdom or from other parts of the Commonwealth. Some of us may have been offended by what is happening in some of these areas where the elements of parliamentary democracy are interlocked with elements which seem to be of a somewhat anti-democratic character, but I disregard all that.
We have to concern ourselves with what will be good for us in the long run. We are interested in the development

of our mercantile marine, for example, not only because it provides invisible assets of a substantial character but because it helps the shipbuilding industry. In the North-East, with which I am primarily concerned because I happen to represent one of the constituencies there and I have to pay attention to what will happen at the forthcoming General Election, because I want to retain my seat, there is some controversy as to whether the Government are doing enough in the way of shipbuilding. But we cannot solve the mercantile marine problem, to put it in a sentence without embroidery or embellishment, unless there is a greater volume of international trade. It is as simple as that or, rather, it can be expressed easily. It is not so easily solved.
Some time ago we had a debate on a Friday when few hon. Members were present and it was easy to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. We discussed the Commonwealth. I see that my hon. Friend, or rather the hon. Lady—I am sorry that I said "Friend"—the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) is present. She spoke on that occasion. In that debate, I ventured to point out that on one occasion in this Assembly a revered colleague although he fell by the wayside, Philip Snowden, who became Lord Snowden, said that if in those days we could have lengthened the shirt of the Indian coolie by one inch it would have solved the problem of the Lancashire textile industry. There was some substance in that.
If we could raise consumer demand it would help shipping, shipbuilding, engineering, and the machine-tool industry and we would almost be on velvet, provided that we had another type of Government, and, of course, that is coming along in due course. Therefore, I should like the House to be realistic about this subject. I shall not suggest that hon. Members opposite are not passionately devoted to the concept of Commonwealth. Like ourselves, they are enthusiastic about the development of the Commonwealth and raising consumer demand and, either for compassionate or for selfish reasons, going to the aid of newly independent countries or those who have become independent. The only trouble about them is that they


"blotted their copy-book" when we had the controversy over the Common Market.
The Prime Minister said today that, of course, they could not get the terms they wanted. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in a magnificent and brilliant speech, hammering the Prime Minister as the right hon. Gentleman rightly deserved, pointed out that de Gaulle had something to do with it. We ought to congratulate General de Gaulle, because he saved this country from making a fool of itself. Indeed, we ought to invite him to become a member of the Labour Party.
As I say, hon. and right hon. Members opposite "blotted their copy-book". There is no doubt about it. In their speeches they denigrated the Commonwealth. I do not want to quote from the innumerable speeches which they made—I remember them well, as other hon. Members do. They said, in effect, "The Commonwealth is on the decline. Australia is going this way, New Zealand that way, Canada that way in the direction of the United States", and so on. That was the sense of what they said. Now, they have discovered their mistake. For the time being at least, apart from a mild flirtation with the countries of the Six—I hope that it does not develop into something illegitimate—that controversy is out of the way.
Now, we are to concentrate on the Commonwealth. Let us do it realistically. As the Prime Minister was making his speech today, I commented to my hon. Friends beside me that it all came from this booklet. As he made his speech, I was reading it. It is all contained in a document issued by the Stationery Office, under the auspices of the Central Office of Information, the title of which is, Consultation and Co-operation with the Commonwealth. It set forth the number of organisations associated in this consultation. There are innumerable pieces of machinery, consultative machinery, planning machinery, information machinery, research machinery—the whole bag of tricks. That is not what we want.
What we want is a thorough examination and analysis of Commonwealth trade relations and a clear understanding of what those relations imply, of

how to bring the Commonwealth countries together in order to promote Improved trade and better relations in harmony, good will and friendship, but with the understanding also that we are trying to help ourselves as well as to help others. This examination ought to take place very soon.
What surprised me today, when the Prime Minister was speaking, was that although there was a look of annoyance on the countenance of the Leader of the House he did not get up to protest. Some time ago, the Leader of the House, after he was dismissed from his previous office, made a proposition about the need for a Commonwealth Economic Development Corporation. Some of us supported him in that. The Prime Minister talked today about a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but did not go so far as the Leader of the House went on that occasion.

Mr. R. H. Turton: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the Prime Minister said that he himself was in favour of a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but that he had to persuade other countries of the Commonwealth to that effect.

Mr. Shinwell: With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that the Leader of the House, on the occasion to which I referred, went much further than that. I remember, also, that, when both he and I were called upon to speak at a meeting in connection with a visit of Commonwealth students here, the right hon. and learned Gentleman developed the theme, and so well did he develop it that I heartily endorsed what he said, much to the consternation of some of the delegates there, who were evidently on the Left wing and did not like my support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. But the fact was that we both agreed. This is the sort of thing we need.
Consultation is all right. I do not disregard it. It is very important. Nor do I disregard the need for research and analysis to get at the facts. But when we have got at the facts and already they are well known, the time comes for action. If there is no action, what do hon. Members think will happen?
A few minutes ago, I referred to the visit we made to the West Indies, to


Jamaica and Trinidad. I dislike what I now have to say, and it will probably cause a little offence among my friends over there, but one has to be realistic. After making very careful inquiry, I came to the conclusion that neither of those countries was viable. I came to the further conclusion that, perhaps during the course of a few years, unless there is a vast development of their agricultural potential and a considerable amount of aid in one form or another, whether from the United Kingdom, the United States or elsewhere, they will still not be viable.
In Jamaica, unemployment is 14 per cent. That is the figure which is given officially. It is more likely 20 per cent. In Trinidad, in spite of oil and the rest, there are indications—I put it no higher, but one must take note of it—that, during the next 10 years, there may be a severe diminution of oil reserves, and Trinidad will have to rely on its agriculture with, perhaps, a few industries.
These are very unsatisfactory and disturbing conclusions to reach, but we must face facts. Unless these countries receive aid very soon and have the opportunity through the means of export guarantees or some other financial, economic or industrial arrangement to build up their trade and develop their agriculture, I doubt very much whether there is any possibility of solving their problems. Having talked to the people there and observed what is going on, I feel not only compassionate but that we could render a great service by helping them. The same applies to the other independent Commonwealth countries.
I appeal to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who is on the Front Bench, to approach this matter realistically and with great urgency and animation. He has to escape from his past. He is the real villain of the piece concerning the Common Market, because I remember that many years ago, when he was agitating for a European movement, he came to me and asked for my support.

The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): The right hon. Gentleman was very helpful.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) came

to the War Office when I was there. I was Chairman of the Labour Party at the time. The Secretary of State wanted me to commit my party. I could not do anything of the sort, and I was not in the least helpful.
As I say, the Secretary of State must escape from this terrible past and devote himself with assiduity, vigour, virility and imagination to the task of building up the Commonwealth. This is a great objective, a fine objective. I know that some people, say that the Commonwealth is declining, that we have multi-lateral trade and that New Zealand and Australia seek to trade with China, and so on. That is all very well. We cannot escape from multi-lateral trade; we must have it. But there is no reason why we should not seek to build up our trade with Commonwealth countries.
I am sorry to have to say this for the sake of my constituents and of others in the North-East and on the Mersey—

Mr. Cyril Bence: And on the Clyde.

Mr. Shinwell: —and on the Clyde, and in other shipbuilding centres, but unless we can do something of that sort, and unless we can place in the possession of our friends and comrades—I think that that is probably the best expression—the means of raising consumer demand, of buying our ships, machine tools and agricultural machinery, and so on, I do not see very much hope of survival for the Commonwealth.
For many years I have been a devotee of the Commonwealth. I ventured to demonstrate that in the last debate that we had by quoting an article which I wrote in the Empire Review, of all periodicals, in 1943, when I urged that we should do what we are now asking should be done. I am an enthusiastic devotee of the Commonwealth because, to use a commonplace, familiar and almost hackneyed expression, I believe that it is a great moral force, despite the giant United Nations. It is a catalyst which can assist in utilising the various chemical ingredients of this globe for the benefit of mankind.
I beg the Secretary of State, before he goes out of office—I am sorry to have to say that; we will miss him—to make a gigantic, a superhuman effort, which I


am sure he can do, to make all the talk, sometimes "ballyhoo", about the Commonwealth a reality.

8.40 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton: The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) always talks common sense about the Commonwealth, and this latest speech of his was no exception. I have been a Member of the House for 34 years. I have never before heard a Prime Minister move a Motion on Commonwealth trade and development. Today is the first time that it has happened and I regard this as a landmark in the history of this Parliament and of this country.
I very much regret that the Opposition are not rising to the occasion, as the right hon. Member for Easington rose to it, and trying to bring the debate above party politics. On Commonwealth development and trade, there is no real issue between the two sides of the House. I accept that the Liberal Party has a rather different view, but there is no great difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. It would make a tremendous difference to the whole Commonwealth if this House could accept unanimously the Motion moved today by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It is a great pity to try to pick party issues and party squabbles at the present time.
I do not know who is to reply for the Opposition, whether it will be the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), who usually looks after Commonwealth affairs, or the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay).

Mr. Jay: That depends upon Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Turton: I appreciate that. Whoever it is, whether he speaks from the angle of the Commonwealth or of trade, I hope very much that he will rise to the occasion and make clear that there is no great issue on these matters between the two sides of the House.
On the Common Market, I took views that were different from those of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East and rather similar to those of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North, but that issue is past and dead. We now

have to go forward and build up a strengthened Commonwealth and then, no doubt, we in the Commonwealth will have to find suitable relations with Europe. That is the future for this country, and it is a great pity if we try to divide, either within or between parties, on this issue.
There are two main issues on the question of Commonwealth trade. The first is that whilst, during the last five years, Commonwealth trade has expanded by £1,130 million, United Kingdom trade with the Commonwealth has declined. That must be put right. That is the first issue. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made an important declaration this afternoon when he said that he would do what had been done in Australia and organise a trade drive with the help of the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce in each of the several regions of the Commonwealth. I should like whoever replies for the Government to elaborate Government policy in this matter.
I firmly believe—and in this I agree with the Leader of the Opposition—that what we want is an Export Council for the Commonwealth. The Export Council for Europe, under Sir William McFadzean, has been of tremendous value. We want the dynamism of a similar council for the Commonwealth. I understood my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to suggest that there would be an export council for each region—for Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, and so on—and that they would all go their several ways. That is a great idea, but it is not sufficiently great.
I believe that we could do more if we had one large export council for the Commonwealth, no doubt with subcommittees dealing with different regions. Just as European trade varies from Greece to France, so does Commonwealth trade vary. Although one wants separate approaches to various parts of the Commonwealth, an overall pattern is necessary.
The second problem is that, during this period the prices of primary products have been stationary or have declined. On the other hand, the prices of manufactures have been rising. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Foley) dealt very well with this problem


of the rich and poor countries. It can be solved only by the development of Commonwealth trade through appropriate Commonwealth machinery.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was very clear in saying that he was attached to the idea of a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but that this was a matter for the Commonwealth as a whole to decide. What steps are the Government taking now to raise this matter with the other Commonwealth countries? Last September, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested a survey of the Commonwealth, a sort of Paley Report. That was accepted at a meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Committee.
I believe that was a most valuable step forward, and from such a beginning, we can, in time, move to a Commonwealth Economic Development Council.
This debate has achieved a great deal in awakening people to the possibilities of the Commonwealth and also to the danger that, if Britain does not act quickly, the trade of the Commonwealth and the links of the Commonwealth will decline. I beg hon. Members on both sides of the House, on this occasion, to rise above party in order to try to present to the nation one Commonwealth policy.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Oram: The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Mahon (Mr. Turton) can at least claim consistency in his attitude to Commonwealth trade, particularly during the great controversy about British entry into the Common Market. But it is not a consistency which can be claimed by many of his right hon. and hon. Friends. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, during those negotiations no reasonable conditions for Commonwealth trade were reached yet the Government were prepared to take Britain into the Common Market. The right hon. Gentleman was one of the vigorous opponents of the Government at that time.
Throughout this debate I have been struck by the note of complacency and lack of urgency, particularly in speeches from the benches opposite. I was also struck, when I read the Government

Motion, by its confident and untroubled wording and by the Prime Minister's speech today, According to the Motion and the speech here is a Commonwealth in which all the right policies are being pursued, aid given and efforts made in the right direction for Commonwealth trade. In fact, it would seem that everything in the Commonwealth garden is lovely.
But after reading the Motion yesterday I turned to The Times and found in item after item of Commonwealth news very gloomy headlines from all over the world—Borneo, East Africa, Cyprus, New Zealand. The only reasonably cheerful news item was that the Canadian Conservatives were having trouble over the election of their leader, which made me feel a little more at home. In such a situation, with trouble in Malaya and Africa, surely the wording of the Motion is utterly complacent and inadequate.
These troubles of which we read are largely political and military and the purpose of the debate is mainly to discuss trade and aid problems. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) that the essential links for the Commonwealth are economic and that unless we get our economic links right, we cannot get our politics right. What is wrong with the Commonwealth today is largely due to the wrong attitudes which successive Conservative Administrations have taken towards Africa and South-East Asia over the years. The territories of the Commonwealth have been treated by those Governments almost solely as sources of raw material and cheap labour, and the present political difficulties in the period of freedom for Commonwealth territories are largely due to those wrong economic approaches over the years.
Each territory is dependent for its livelihood on the production of perhaps only one or two plantation crops, and this makes them extremely vulnerable in the world's commodity markets, which means that they find it impossible to lift themselves out of poverty. These troubles lead some hon. Members opposite to the view that perhaps we were too impulsive and gave freedom to territories in Africa too quickly. Indeed, Lord Salisbury has said this openly and


I was glad to see that he got a forthright reply from the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), the editor of the Spectator, who said that it was absolutely essential to quicken the pace of giving freedom to African territories during his period of office.
The centre of the economic problem of territory after territory throughout the Commonwealth is that if something goes wrong with one commodity market, the territory is in trouble—Mauritius, with sugar forming 90 per cent. of its exports, cocoa making 50 per cent. of the exports of Ghana and coffee 30 per cent. of the exports of Kenya. I was looking at one particularly illustrative fact of the way in which something going wrong in one commodity market can upset the whole income and welfare of one of these developing territories. I refer to Sarawak in Borneo. In 1960, it exported 50,000 tons of rubber and earned an income of £15 million. In the next year, it exported almost the same tonnage of rubber, 47,000 tons, but it earned an income of only £10 million, a slump of £5 million simply by the fortuitous slump in the world price of rubber.
The White Paper on aid to overseas territories says that since the war this country has given Sarawak £6 million worth of aid. This afternoon the Prime Minister gave some impressive figures of the extent of our financial aid to overseas territories, but they must be considered against the background of relentlessly declining commodity prices on which these countries depend for their livings. In one year Sarawak lost almost as much aid as it had received from this country over nearly twenty years. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) that aid is as necessary as trade, that both are essential, but he did not sufficiently emphasise that the long-term necessity is getting our trading relationships right. Aid can be only temporary. It is proper trading relationships which are essential. That is why I felt that the Prime Minister was more than a little complacent in his treatment of commodity agreements.

The Prime Minister: I hope that I was not complacent about commodity agreements, but a rubber agreement has

so far defeated everybody. I remember that when I was Commonwealth Secretary I was very keen to get a commodity agreement covering rubber, but the synthetic rubber made it almost impossible to conclude an arrangement and have it internationally agreed.

Mr. Oram: I agree that there are difficulties with almost any commodity. We have been told of that with cocoa, and so on. But I cannot believe that it has been impossible to get more than the three agreements which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. If we had approached commodity agreements with sufficient vigour over the last 10 years, we could have reached much better arrangements than we now have, not only to our advantage, but more especially to that of the developing countries.
The House went through a period of debate after debate about our entry into the Common Market. An enormous machine of negotiating skill was in operation and a great deal of energy was applied by the Government day after day and month after month. If only a quarter of that skill and energy and time had been used, not in Brussels but in a world centre, to negotiate world commodity agreements, the Commonwealth, this country and the developing countries of the whole world would be far better off, and this country would not have wasted much of its administrative and negotiating ability on what turned out to be a fruitless exercise.
We ought to have been thinking in Commonwealth terms and world terms during those critical years. They were particularly wasted years, two or three years within a whole dozen wasted years of which the Government have been guilty.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner: I have two minutes to say something which, I hope, the House will think of some importance. One of the most remarkable things said by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister in this stimulating debate was that he was considering setting up a Commonwealth Court. This court would have, I believe, a tremendous possibility before it. It is a court that is very necessary, and it


could have a future that would be an inspiration to the world. I believe that it is a court from which could issue a writ of habeas corpus which could do much to solve the problem of the political prisoner in the Commonwealth.
I congratulate the Prime Minister on his foresight in deciding to give this prospect of a Commonwealth Court his attention in the future.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: If anyone ever damned anything with faint praise, it was the Prime Minister speaking of the Commonwealth today. I do not know why he chose to speak. We did not even get a deathbed repentance. All we had was a deathbed confession; a confession of failure in the whole of this campaign.
We see today posters which promise us straight talk and action from the Prime Minister. All we had in this debate was double talk and no action. The Prime Minister gave no firm assurance that the damage done to the Commonwealth by the Brussels negotiations in 1962 would not be repeated if the present Government ever got the chance. That damage was far too deep and lasting to be healed by a few equivocal words, and I must warn the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade, who is not with us yet, that he is not the best man to restore confidence in the Commonwealth. I believe that he could have tested the terms which were obtainable from the Brussels powers without wounding the Commonwealth if we had held genuine consultations with our own friends first and if we had not offered terms which plainly would have mutilated vital Commonwealth trade. In spite of that, what the Government did was to send round to the Commonwealth a number of prejudiced Ministers who did not indulge in bona fide consultation, but who told the Commonwealth countries what we proposed to do and tried to bully them into not making any protest.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies, who is not here either, that I would not like to repeat some of the remarks made to me by Australians and New Zealanders about his activities there on this

issue. Frankly, I would not like to repeat those remarks either outside or inside the House.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. John Tilney): I think that my right hon Friend explained to the Leader of the Opposition why he could not be here.

Mr. Jay: That may be so. Perhaps it would have been better if he had not gone to Australia or New Zealand either.
Last summer, while in India and Pakistan, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (M. G. M. Thomson) and I were asked time and again why it was that Britain had decided to write-off Commonwealth trade and the Commonwealth. We constantly had to explain that it was not Britain who had written them off but a handful of Tory Ministers who were gravely misrepresenting British opinion.
Only one argument was really advanced two and a half or three years ago for writing off Commonwealth trade and looking elsewhere. The argument was that our trade with the Commonwealth was declining and that therefore it should be allowed to go on declining. The truth was that it was not declining absolutely but only as a percentage of total trade. This was due partly to the natural swing back to the pre-war situation and partly to our own policies, and in so far as any decline existed action ought to have been taken to stop it.
The first deception in the argument was to take Commonwealth trade as a percentage of our total trade in some year such as 1950 and compare it with 1960 and show that the percentage had been declining. But the Commonwealth share of our trade rose very markedly from 1938 until after the war, partly because the Commonwealth sustained us during the war and partly due to the deliberate policies of the Labour Government. There was a swing back towards the previous percentages when we resumed trade with Europe after the war, and therefore it was grossly distorting to take only the second chapter of the story.
If we look at the real figures, we see that United Kingdom exports to the Commonwealth as a percentage of total


U.K. exports rose from 31·6 per cent., in 1938, to 37·8 per cent., in 1948, and fell back to 30·7 per cent. in 1962, very much the same as they were before the war. Of total United Kingdom imports, 34·2 per cent. came from the Commonwealth in 1938, 42·3 per cent. in 1948, and 31·1 per cent. in 1962. Overall, therefore, we have very nearly got back to the prewar percentages, with imports a little below them.
In his brilliant speech this afternoon, my right hon. Friend mentioned some of the causes of this swing back in our share of Commonwealth trade over the last ten years. But none of them provides a reason either for expecting or, still less, wishing this decline to continue. The first is simply the natural switch back from an exceptional wartime situation. The second is our own policy, as is shown in a most revealing article in the December issue of the Three Banks Review by Professor Austin Robinson. He there shows that the premature liberalisation of United Kingdom imports by the present Chancellor in 1958–59 increased, proportionately very markedly, our less essential imports from outside the Commonwealth and forced us to cut down proportionately our essential imports from the Commonwealth—because a large slice of this country's essential imports of food and raw materials comes from the Commonwealth. What happened was that the Government, having needlessly cut down by this means the Commonwealth share of our trade, then complained gloomily that the share was falling and proceeded to use that as an argument for letting it fall still further.
As the Prime Minister said, the third reason is the decline in primary commodity prices which took place from 1957 to 1961 and which held back the purchasing power of some Commonwealth countries. But what the Prime Minister did not notice was that the decline came to an end two years ago. Generally speaking, over the last two years commodity prices have risen, and food surpluses in the world have been declining and not growing.
The next reason is also due wholly to our own policy, and is wholly in our own hands. Let us take the case of India and Pakistan—two nations which

together form an important part of the Commonwealth and which are typical of the developing countries generally. Why have our exports to India and Pakistan not increased so fast in the last five years as have those from the United States and several other countries? The answer—as was constantly borne in on my hon. Friend and me when we were in India and Pakistan last summer—is that aid from this country to India and Pakistan is far less, and on far less favourable terms, than the aid which is being given by the United States. Nowadays trade follows aid in exports to the developing countries. We must recognise that as a fact whether we like it or not.
Conclusive proof of this comes from the F.B.I.'s excellent booklet on India's development plans, which shows that by 1961–62 America's share of aid to India was 52 per cent. compared with only 7 per cent. from this country. In the six years from 1957 to 1963, if we include the American special wheat exports to India, the British share of exports to India fell from 25 per cent. to 17 per cent. and the United States' share rose from 12·5 per cent. to 30 per cent. It is now actually higher than ours.
There is no serious doubt that was due to the volume of aid being given. Indeed, the F.B.I. concludes in its report that our trade is being lost—rightly or wrongly—because of the limitations on the aid that we give which, in the words of the F.B.I.
impose an exactly equivalent limitation on British exports to India.
That is the whole explanation. It is not that India does not want to buy, or that she does not want to buy British goods; it is that she simply has not the foreign exchange to do so, and as the United States offers tied loans, or tied gifts—if I may use that expression—India is bound to buy American goods. If there were time to tell the story of Pakistan, it would be the same.
I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State that the whole of the lorry market in Pakistan for the next 30 years has been lost to this country because the American firm competing with Leyland was able to offer much easier credit terms.
On the other side of the account, why is it that our purchases in return from India and Pakistan have not risen


faster? The answer to that is simply because we have been unwilling to buy more. At the present stage of development of these countries they can export in large quantities only textiles, leather goods and a few other types of goods. Unless the industrial countries are prepared to buy these, the poorer countries of Asia will be neither able to pay their debts, carry development plans forward nor buy goods in increasing quantities. This is one reason why Commonwealth trade has not been growing faster.
They are almost all forces which are in our own hands to control. In my opinion, they should be spurs to action and not excuses for defeatism. I believe that if we look forward over a rather longer period, 30 or 40 years ahead, it will be evident that the main future of British trade is going to lie with the Commonwealth, both the developed and the developing countries. That is true, first, because the population of the Commonwealth already very large, is going to grow very fast as the already developed countries grow, due to immigration. It is quite clear that when the standard of living does rise the purchasing power of these countries will be enormous.
Secondly, do not let us forget that the Commonwealth covers every climate of the world, and every type of crop and mineral can be found within it. That is not true either of the Soviet Union, the United States or the Common Market Six. So let us have the imagination to realise what opportunities we have on our side.
From the point of view of the United Kingdom a high proportion of our essential imports, food and raw materials in particular, comes from the Commonwealth countries, because they are far more cheaply and efficiently produced there. Of our imports from the Commonwealth at the present time food and materials represent 65 per cent. and of our imports from the Brussels Six only 27 per cent. is represented by food and materials. It is always a surprise to me how seldom the obviously practical inference is drawn. One of the first maxims in making provision for this country must be to export, at any rate largely, to those countries from which, for physical reasons, we must, in the long-run, draw our essential imports.

If we slide into the position of buying goods from one set of countries and exporting mainly to another set of countries, our whole economic survival will depend on the continued convertibility of the currencies of other countries. If we look over the last 40 years of history, we realise that that is a considerable gamble to take. With those tong-term aims for the Commonwealth, what practical action can we take now?
I believe that the first principle of our policy should be to maintain the freest possible entry for food and raw materials horn the Commonwealth into the United Kingdom. Every rational argument converges in favour of this. It assists our standard of living; it keeps down our export costs; it helps our balance of payments through the terms of trade; it benefits other Commonwealth countries; it expands Commonwealth trade and, incidentally, the production of food in the world where it can be best and most favourably produced. The second principle, I suggest, must be a concerted effort, which ought to be led by Britain, to persuade the industrial countries to buy bigger quantities of textiles and other secondary manufactures from the developing countries. Incidentally, the United Nations Trade Conference next month in Geneva should give the Government an opportunity to pursue that aim.
It is intolerable that this country should be taking 35 per cent., for instance, of its textile consumption from overseas, while the United States takes 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. and the Common Market takes only 1 per cent. It is ludicrous that the West as a whole should be contributing, for instance, to India 1,000 million dollars of aid a year and should refuse to take payment in return in the only form which it is possible for India to make. It is for those reasons that in our view the terms which were being negotiated a year ago by the right hon. Gentleman as Brussels would have been absolutely disastrous both for the Commonwealth and for Britain.
The Prime Minister did not mention today that the right hon. Gentleman had agreed to placing new duties and restrictions on the import to this country, not merely of textiles and other manufactures from the Commonwealth, but on the great bulk of food and a number of materials


imported to the United Kingdom. It is deplorable enough with the present widening gap between the richer and the poorer countries of the world if we fail to remove the present obstacles which prevent those countries selling their goods and earning foreign exchange from the richer countries, but for Great Britain in the 1960s to impose a sweeping new range of severe restrictions on those countries' goods as the right hon. Gentleman proposed a year ago would have been stark, staring madness.
Those terms were not merely humiliating but, what is worse, they would have been crippling. They would have mutilated Commonwealth trade and struck the most wounding blow for generations past at this country's economic position in the world. What we should like the Secretary of State to explain tonight is what the previous Prime Minister meant by telling us a week after General de Gaulle had saved us from this disaster that these negotiations were near to success. Does that mean that the Government thought that these were good terms? Does the Secretary of State agree with him, or does he agree with the later view expressed by the present Prime Minister on the moors that those terms were not suitable? Can we have some real straight talk tonight in answer to this question? All that the Prime Minister said today was that the whole thing was not a live issue.
Will the right hon. Gentleman in his reply also tell us what are the Government's terms for possible negotiations with the Common Market Six in future? Our own position on this is perfectly clear and perfectly firm. What is more, it stays the same from one year to another. We stand emphatically by the five conditions for any resumed negotiations laid down by the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in October 1962. The first of those conditions, which some may well think the most important, is that in any settlement there must be
strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth".
That means at the very least that no new restrictions must be placed on the freedom of Commonwealth trade.
Will the right hon. Gentleman tonight give a similar undertaking on behalf

of his party? If he does not the country is bound to draw the inference that the party opposite, if it ever gets the chance, intends to renegotiate our entry to the Common Market on terms similar to those which the previous Prime Minister thought were successful. After all, both the present Foreign Secretary and the present Prime Minister have been giving private assurances to this effect to various continental statesmen in the last two or three months. The Foreign Secretary's statement of this week—I quote the latest version from HANSARD—that
no question has arisen of our joining the Six in the economic sphere at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1964; Vol. 688, c. 799.]
not merely contradicts everything that has been happening so far, but also contradicts what he himself has been saying to various continental representatives. Will the Secretary of State therefore clear this up once for all tonight and tell us whether he accepts the Foreign Secretary's latest dictum and whether that dictum applies only to the period before the General Election or to the period after the General Election also?
After all, even at this moment the Government are pushing through the House an Agriculture and Horticulture Bill which would introduce into this country that very system of food levies and food taxes which most people regard as the most vicious part of the Common Market's ring fence against the outside world. We believe, therefore, even if the party opposite does not, that we need fewer restrictions, not more, on the flow of Commonwealth trade, and we urge immediate practical steps to that end. The Prime Minister said, rather pathetically, today that in terms of institutions we could do virtually nothing because the other Commonwealth countries would not agree to strengthen the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. Cannot the United Kingdom Government take any initiative of their own? I can tell the right hon. Gentleman several things we could do straight away.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman ought to know that we have got a Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. What I was talking about was a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, with a secretariat.


If it is to be developed, we must have the consent of the other Commonwealth countries, and so far they have not given it.

Mr. Jay: I understand that perfectly well. What I am trying to explain to the Prime Minister is that, though some things require the assent of the other countries, there are several things we could do on our own initiative, which I will now tell him. We could, in the first place, set up a Commonwealth export council on the same terms and with the same powers as the Western Hemisphere and the European Export Council. I can tell him another thing we could do. We could establish links between the highly developed planning organisations that several Commonwealth countries, including India and Pakistan, have with our own planning organisation here. Why cannot we do that? Both the Indian and the Pakistan authorities told me last summer that they would be very sympathetic to this idea. There is a great deal of work which such organisations could then do.
Next, why cannot we put the maximum pressure behind the campaign for expanding international credit and liquidity? That would at once do as much as, if not more than, the starting of commodity agreements, because it would increase the demand for the products of all these countries. What I would like to see would be new credit created by the International Monetary Fund, lent through the World Bank or one of its affiliates, and used by the developing countries to buy goods from us. That would start priming the pump all round. I am glad to see that some right hon. Gentlemen at least agree to that.
Next, I suggest that this country—if the Prime Minister is really interested, this is something this country should do—should take a major decision to offer to India, Pakistan, Malaysia and the other Commonwealth developing countries easier credits, on longer terms, with lower rates of interest, to be spent on British exports. I advise right hon. Members opposite to read the F.B.I. report, if they think we have done all that we could do. If we do not do that, we shall lose further export markets in those countries.
I know the argument that we cannot give away our exports for nothing. I certainly would not advocate lavish gifts or negligible rates of interest. However, if the loss of markets we have suffered in the last few years is not to be repeated—for instance, if the Trident is not to lose further orders to the American Boeing—we must accept payment for these goods on deferred terms over a long period of years and at lower rates of interest. These countries are not viable enough to pay in a short period, but they may be viable enough to do so if they had a long enough period in which to pay.
These are measures which the United Kingdom could take on her own initiative. But I do not see why we should not make an effort to explore, together with the other Commonwealth countries, whether it is not possible jointly to go further than that. Surely we should try to explore the various possibilities?
I cannot at this hour detail all of these points, but if it were possible to make an agreement with the developed Commonwealth countries by which, in return for guaranteed markets and continued free entry for their primary products here they were willing to reduce their tariffs on Commonwealth manufactures and some foreign goods, we could make further progress towards free trade in the Commonwealth. Would it not be possible to advocate some reforms in G.A.T.T.? I am in favour of G.A.T.T., but we should not regard its present rules as absolutely sacrosanct and unalterable. Should we not try, with other Commonwealth countries, to get agreement on at least this Amendment of the G.A.T.T. rules; that an enlargement of a preference, or a widening of a preference area, provided that it resulted not in raising but in lowering a tariff, would not be outlawed by the rules of G.A.T.T.? That would make a great deal of progress possible towards freer trade in the Commonwealth and between E.F.T.A. and the Commonwealth.
I know perfectly well that this requires a lot of discussion and agreement with other countries, but surely we should try to explore these possibilities and take a lead in opening the negotiations. Success would depend partly on our showing a little initiative and partly on the


value which we all attach to the Commonwealth. My hon. Friends and I value the Commonwealth profoundly, for wider than economic reasons, all the more, because colonialism has come to an end. It seems that there are many people in other parts of the Commonwealth who also value it. I have noticed recently that a number of people have asked for British troops to come to their aid. I have not noticed quite the same enthusiasm for Russian, Chinese or even German or French troops.
I hope that today's debate and the spirit in which it has been conducted may mark an end to the habit, which has become far too common, of denigrating both the Commonwealth and this country. [Interruption.] It is a habit which I regard as rather juvenile and rather myopic—[Interruption.]—but the tragedy is that in the last three years many of the detractors of the Commonwealth have been found sitting on the Government Front Bench.

9.29 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Heath): The whole House will agree that the debate today, on the Government's initiative, has been invaluable in focusing attention not only on the problems but also on the possibilities of the Commonwealth countries. It has, right from the beginning, emphasised the many ways in which the relations between Britain and the Commonwealth and between the Commonwealth countries are remarkably close.
Be it in defence or in trade, in aid or in technical assistance, whether it is in professional associations, in education, in research or in innumerable personalties, the debate has once again focused the interest of the country on all these things. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) has just said that he and his party support the Commonwealth, which we welcome, but for things much wider, he said, than economic ties. It may, therefore, appear to some to be somewhat extraordinary that all reference to other ties in our Motion are sought to be deleted by him, and nothing but economic matters put in their place.
It has been a thoughtful and a reflective debate, and many suggestions have been put by hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides. We will, of course, examine them, and consider them further; they may provide the germ for further fruitful work. Many hon. Members spoke from their own experience. Some spoke from their very recent experience, like the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey), who both recounted their experiences on a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association visit. I would gladly and willingly acknowledge my own debt to such a visit in 1954, when I enjoyed similar experiences in most of the Commonwealth countries of Africa. Again, at the Foreign Office, I had the opportunity of visiting many Commonwealth countries.
In the European negotiations, strange though it may seem to the right hon. Gentleman, we formed a closer habit of consultation with the Commonwealth than has ever before been experienced. People who have the idea that those who supported the negotiations—which the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend have been so anxious to discuss again today—should know that the great majority of my own party in the House and in the country never regarded Europe as an alternative to the Commonwealth and that those who now, for political purposes, are trying to make out that to be the case could not be more false.
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition suggested that there might be a formalisation of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; that it should be turned into a consultative assembly and then, perhaps, into a council. I must say to him, from my own experience of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association ever since I have been in the House, that I should have thought it unlikely that the Association would want to do that, because it is just the informality of the meetings, the visits and the tours of the C.P.A. which have brought to it many of its greatest benefits. But no doubt that is a matter that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association itself can consider, and decide whether it is a move it would like to make, and which the


other Commonwealth country branches would like to join it in making.
But this approach illustrates the two themes that have run through this debate. There are those—and I hope that they will not take offence if I say so—who want to see more emphasis on seeing the Commonwealth as a rather more exclusive organisation. They would like to see it develop politically and economically, and in this way become a closer, more tightly bound and rather more exclusive organisation. I do not believe that, today, it is possible, even if it were desirable. Others recognise this, and recognise that it is their independence that the Commonwealth countries value almost more than anything, and are, therefore, developing their links with the outside world in every possible way, and want to see a conception of the Commonwealth that fits in with their own activities in that direction.
That particularly affects trade and our trade relationship with Commonwealth countries, which are developing trade extensively with the other countries of the world. Britain is still the centre of intra-Commonwealth trade—because we are the only big Commonwealth market for food and raw materials, and also because we are the only big Commonwealth exporter of manufactured goods—but, by 1962, two-thirds of the trade of the Commonwealth countries was outside the Commonwealth; in other words, they did twice as much trade with outsiders as they did with each other. There is nothing here to resent, and nothing to lament, because it conduces to the strength of the individual Commonwealth countries and, therefore, to the strength of the Commonwealth as a whole.
But it means that they themselves put the emphasis on multilateral trading, on the arrangements which they can make with the other countries of the world. Therefore, they put the emphasis on the international organisations for supporting multilateral trade, on the United Nations Trade Conference and on G.A.T.T., and, in particular, on the Kennedy Round.
Here I find myself at variance with the right hon. Gentleman, because towards the end of his speech he emphasised that there should be a growing trade automatically between the

Commonwealth countries and ourselves, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said, because they are complementary in their economies.
This may at first appear to be so, but the lesson of post-war trade, whether desirable or not, rightly or wrongly, is that it has increased much more rapidly between Western industrial countries in industrial goods than it has done between developing countries and the industrial countries themselves. All the facts show that to be the case, and this is surely the problem that we face with the developing countries—the ever-widening gap between the industrialised world and the developing countries.
The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) had three themes running through that part of his speech dealing with the Commonwealth. First, he emphasised the success of the Labour Government of 1945–51 in Commonwealth trade. Secondly, there was what was described by one of his hon. Friends as a brilliant analysis of the situation after that. It was, in fact, a recital of facts. I do not quarrel with the facts, but there was no analysis beneath them of the real cause of these developments.

Mr. H. Wilson: I made two points on that.

Mr. Heath: I do not regard those two points as being a real analysis of the situation.
The right hon. Gentleman's third point was to produce solutions which, again, did not go to the root of the problem in dealing with Commonwealth trade.
Let us deal, first, with this question of the high proportion of Commonwealth trade under a Labour Government. Why was it so high at that time? The right hon. Gentleman said that it was because of conscious Labour Government planning, but the real reason was that these were six years of world shortage of food and raw materials. There has been never any doubt about that. At that point the whole of the Commonwealth was restricted in its imports from the dollar area and other countries, because of the restrictions on the sterling area and because sterling was not convertible. This,


also meant that the Commonwealth countries were limited very largely to trade between themselves. This was the reason for the high percentage of Commonwealth trade in those years.

Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman really has his facts wrong. He made one important statement just now, but the rest is completely wrong. Does he not realise that because of enemy occupation, for example, of Malaya and other Commonwealth countries, we could not get anything like our pre-war imports from those countries and we were driven for food, oils, fats, grains and the rest, much more into the dollar area and away from the Commonwealth because of war-time devastation and the very facts which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned?

Mr. Heath: In that case it does not enable the right hon. Gentleman to boast of the commodity arrangements which he made exclusively with Commonwealth countries. Therefore, we had an exceptionally favoured position in the Commonwealth because of these restrictions. Moreover, our competitors today, Germany and Japan, were in no position to compete with us in the Commonwealth.
What are the reasons for the changing pattern today? First, our own market is much too small to absorb the increasing Commonwealth primary production. Secondly, our own agricultural expansion limits Commonwealth sales of food here. The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have been very enthusiastic about a policy for expanding British agricultural production. Let them say quite clearly how they will reconcile the two sides to this problem of taking larger and larger supplies from the Commonwealth? Is it to be at the expense of the British farmer or of the outside supplier?
Thirdly, the Commonwealth countries have built up their own industries, and the fact that they have done so has had a heavier impact upon Britain because we had a far larger share of the market than the other countries who were competing with us. Also, as the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted, so much of the resources of the Asian and

African Commonwealth come from aid which is tied by other suppliers.
Finally, since 1951, so many of the Commonwealth countries have achieved their independence and, whereas under the Labour Government it was quite natural that they relied, as dependencies, for their supplies on this country, as independent countries they shop in the world where they wish and where it suits them.
In his analysis, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that Her Majesty's Government were against commodity arrangements which would have helped the purchasing power of the Commonwealth countries. We have maintained the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in full force as a long-term agreement. The first post-war international Tin Agreement came into force in 1956, the international Olive Oil Agreement in 1958, and the international Coffee Agreement in 1963. We were founder members of all those, and we have carried out our part in commodity agreements during our term of office.
The right hon. Gentleman accused us of eroding Australian preferences. What he did not say is that there has been a general erosion of preferences both ways, reflecting the general reduction of tariffs on imports from foreign countries because of the multilateral arrangements which have been made under the G.A.T.T. That has been the real reason for the erosion of preferences among the Commonwealth countries.
What were the two reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave? He said that there were two reasons, ignoring all those which I have just mentioned which, in fact, are fundamental. There was what he chose to call the "soft-centre" economy of Britain—an economy which, nevertheless, has not prevented our exports in the world as a whole today reaching a record level. Secondly, he blamed British industry for its weakness and its failings.
I have some suggestions to make about what is required of British industry to cope with the problem of exports in the world as a whole, but the right hon. Gentleman might have acknowledged that British industry has been facing a large number of difficult obstacles in many Commonwealth markets in the post-war world. Why did


he not mention these obstacles, in fairness to British industry? In Canada, for instance, we know that British industry has been discouraged because of devaluation and surcharges and because of anti-dumping duties which predated the G.A.T.T.; and, of course, there is the disadvantage that Canada is geographically next door to the great American production line, with very short communications. I believe that British industrialists should now throw off this discouragement and make a fresh attack on the Canadian market.
In Australia, British industry has been facing increased tariff levels because of protection for domestic industry. This, again, hit us more heavily than others.

Mr. H. Wilson: Germany?

Mr. Heath: It has not affected Germany in the same way because our preferences have been eroded more, and, also, we had a larger share of the market beforehand. Therefore, our imports into Australia have been replaced by domestic production.
The same thing has happened in New Zealand. In addition, in the African and Asian Commonwealth we have the problem of tied aid. These are the factors with which British industry has had to compete, and it is only fair to British industry to recognise these things.
Let me come to the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman in his proposals. He said that he welcomed the proposal for an Atlantic community. But, before the Common Market negotiations, this idea was part of the development of an Atlantic community. The right hon. Gentleman may differ about how it should be brought about, but this does not alter the fact that the object should be to work within an Atlantic community, not formalised or institutionalised.
The right hon. Gentleman's first suggestion was that there should be regular meetings on capital investment programmes of all the Commonwealth countries. There can be an exchange of information. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took the initiative at the last Commonwealth Finance Ministers' conference in September to have exactly such an exchange. It was a British initiative. My right hon. Friend has

since sent invitations to the Commonwealth countries in order to carry this out. This has not yet been accepted by all the Commonwealth countries, but it is an initiative we have taken because we believe it to be useful and right.
The right hon. Gentleman said that the Commonwealth countries will give preference for British equipment. The plain fact is that the Commonwealth countries which need British equipment, apart from those acquiring it by aid, are those which, at the moment, are giving preference to their own domestic producers. This is one of the facts of life which the right hon. Gentleman must face.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North made an astonishing suggestion. He said that we should approach these countries and, in return for a continuation of free trade, ask them to lower their industrial tariffs. Is he suggesting that we should say to them, "If you do not do this we will not maintain free entry", because otherwise what is the point of saying it to them?

Mr. Jay: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give an assurance that in any future negotiations with Europe he will maintain absolutely free entry, as now?

Mr. Heath: That is an entirely irrelevant remark. I was asking the right hon. Gentleman how he expects to carry on negotiations by offering people something which they have already and asking them to make a concession in return.

Mr. Jay: rose—

Mr. Heath: I have given way a great deal and I have to deal with Europe and other matters.
The right hon. Gentleman's second proposal was guaranteed markets for Commonwealth agricultural produce. Again I asked him: at whose expense would he carry this out? We are doing it for sugar.

Mr. H. Wilson: What about wheat?

Mr. Heath: This has been going on for the last 15 years. If the Commonwealth is to have additional markets, they already have free entry for their agricultural produce. In some cases, like barley, they have a preference.

Mr. Wilson: Would the right hon. Gentleman keep it?

Mr. Heath: They know perfectly well of this free entry and they can make use of it.
The third proposal was to expand our industrial system to meet Commonwealth needs. Our industrialists are only too anxious to do this.

Mr. Wilson: Are they?

Mr. Heath: Yes. They are trying to sell in all Commonwealth markets and to meet their needs. What the right hon. Gentleman did not mention was any provision about meeting the needs of the Commonwealth countries to sell their industrial goods here. This is the key point. When the right hon. Gentleman says, "Take their textiles and their goods" when our own industry thinks that these are produced by cheap labour, is he saying that we should abolish the arrangements which we have at the moment for limiting textiles?

Mr. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman knows the answer which we have given. We gave it a year ago. It is to support, as he supports, the George Ball plan for all industrial countries to take their fair share of Asian textiles.

Mr. Heath: In other words, the right hon. Gentleman can produce easy solutions about agricultural commodity arrangements, but he does not face up to the difficult problem of the industrial goods of the developing countries.
The right hon. Gentleman said, "Let us have commodity agreements on other goods to stabilise prices". Those we are already supporting fully. What we do not support are commodity agreements which do not stabilise prices, but which are designed to give additional foreign exchange earnings. That is a different matter. We are already carrying out the right hon. Gentleman's fourth point.
The right hon. Gentleman's fifth point—to take an initiative to increase liquidity—was exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer did in Washington 18 months ago, and which is now being carried out. Therefore, of the five solutions put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, we are already carrying out three of them, one will happen in any event because industry will meet the requirements in the Commonwealth, and the last one must be at the expense of the home farmer or the overseas supplier.
The right hon. Gentleman then dealt with a large number of other activities, which I will not deal with now because I want briefly to come to his other question concerning Europe before dealing with some of the positive aspects. First, the right hon. Gentleman raised the old hare about the broken pledges. He knows full well that we went into the negotiations on the authority of the House of Commons in the Motion passed by the House, on which the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends did not divide. Those were the terms on which we conducted the negotiations. The right hon. Gentleman accused us of trying to rush in at all costs. While the negotiations went on, he accused us of long-drawn-out negotiations.
The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends never for a moment understood the arrangements which were made on behalf of the Commonwealth. India was to have her foreign exchange earnings underwritten completely. Was not that valuable? What about the textile agreement and the arrangement which was made also in the negotiations? What about the African, Asian and Caribbean Commonwealth countries, which could either have had association or alternative trade agreements? What about the commodity agreements for Canada, Australia and New Zealand?
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said that we should not wait in the courtyard. We are not waiting in the courtyard. What is happening is that the Commonwealth countries themselves are now visiting the Six in Brussels to try individually to get the trading arrangements which we had negotiated for them in Brussels. The older Commonwealth countries are trying to get the same commodity agreements in the Kennedy Round in G.A.T.T. That proves that these were arrangements which they wanted.
The right hon. Gentleman stated his position and said that this also was clear. He said that he would go in on the five points which he made, which had been made by his party, and one of which was repeated by his right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North: that was, strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our


friends and partners in the Commonwealth.
The right hon. Gentleman put it quite differently. He said that he would not join in any talks which would reduce Britain's existing freedom to trade with the Commonwealth. That is much more narrow than the first point of the Labour Party's declaration. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman joined a world commodity agreement, that would limit his freedom to trade with the Commonwealth. He knows it well. He also knows that this sort of condition is incompatible with a customs union, a common tariff and a common commercial policy He must, therefore, know that he could not possibly even enter into negotiations with the Community. It is simply deluding himself to say that he wants to join it on this condition. He should not try to delude the country any longer and he certainly does not delude Europe by producing this sort of comment.
Our position is quite clear. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, this is not at the moment a live issue. Any future Government will have to judge the matter on the circumstances of the time and will have to obtain the authority of Parliament to enter into negotiations.
I wish, in the last few minutes of the debate, to turn to the positive aspect of our Commonwealth trade policy. It is one in which we fully support the Kennedy Round. We worked hard for it. The Leader of the Opposition welcomed our support for it. I discussed this with Mr. George Ball and the United States Administration in Washington a fortnight before they made any public announcement about it. We gave full support, on behalf of the British Government, to the Kennedy Round right from the beginning. We support the United Nations Trade Conference and we are working in O.E.C.D. to try to find ways and means, with the other Western industrialised countries, of helping not only the Commonwealth developing countries but other developing countries as well.
The conference is due to begin on 23rd March next and we have sent invitations to the other Commonwealth Governments to send Ministers here in order to have a full discussion again

about our position in the conference before it opens. Naturally, when the date for the Kennedy Round conference is fixed, we would like to do the same thing.
I believe that we in Britain should be immensely proud of everything we are doing in trade for developing countries, because we are doing far more than any other country in the world. In 1962, our imports from developing countries were worth more than £21 per head of our population, compared with £11 per head of the population in the United States and £14 per head of the population in the European Economic Community. If every other industrialised country took 30 per cent. of its textile imports from the developing countries the problems we are facing would be far fewer.
We are simplifying the documentation used in Commonwealth trade. The Canadian Minister of Trade is coming here at the end of the month and I very much look forward to my talks with him about problems which have arisen. Meanwhile, Lord Amory, as the former British High Commissioner in Ottawa, has been having discussions, as we invited him to do, with 70 or 100 of the main firms dealing with Canada at the moment in order to give them any further information about trade with Canada.
In Australia, we are carrying out the biggest programme of British weeks, fortnights and exhibitions that we have ever put on in any country in the world, and this will culminate in the great exhibition in Sydney in the autumn. This shows the attention that we are paying to this major Commonwealth market.
In addition, the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce has set up action committees in many Commonwealth countries, including Canada, the Caribbean, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria and East Africa, as well as one in this country, in order to encourage Commonwealth trade.
I have already announced that we are reorganising the Western Hemisphere Export Council and I hope to see it now in three separate arrangements, one dealing specifically with Canada. I believe that it is in these individual activities that we can best focus


attention on the individual Common-wealth markets and thereby achieve a reconstruction and an increase of Commonwealth trade.
I have just heard that the final details of the categorisation arrangements for cotton textile goods have been settled between the British and Hong Kong industries. These arrangements will be published tomorrow. It is very encouraging to Lancashire and the textile trade that on this very difficult problem we have been able to reach agreement with Hong Kong.
But, of course, for all our governmental and institutional activities, the answer must depend fundamentally on the activities of British industry and British industrialists themselves. I therefore want to see the structure of British industry such that it can sustain not only the necessary manufacturing capacity and the necessary research and development but also the necessary sales organisation.

In that way I believe that we can best help Commonwealth trade and Commonwealth development as well as the development of our own country.

I believe that we are entirely justified in putting forward this Motion and are vigorously carrying out the measures I have described. The Opposition deplore damage done to Commonwealth economic relations, but that damage is a figment of their imagination. They call on us to make a plan for the development of Commonwealth production which affects independent countries of the Commonwealth. What right have the Opposition to say that we must plan the production of other Commonwealth countries? For all these reasons I urge the House to reject the Amendment.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 294, Noes 225.

Division No. 20.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Cleaver, Leonard
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Cole, Norman
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)


Allason, James
Cooke, Robert
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian
Cooper, A. E.
Goodhart, Philip


Anderson, D. C.
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Goodhew, Victor


Arbuthnot, John
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Gough, Frederick


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Corfield, F. V.
Gower, Raymond


Atkins, Humphrey
Costain, A. P.
Grant-Ferris, R.


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Coulson, Michael
Green, Alan


Balniel, Lord
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Gresham Cooke, R.


Barlow, Sir John
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.


Barter, John
Crawley, Aidan
Gurden, Harold


Batsford, Brian
Critchley, Julian
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Crowder, F. P.
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)


Bell, Ronald
Cunningham, Sir Knox
Harris, Frederie (Croydon, N. W.)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Curran, Charles
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Currie, G. B. H.
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)


Bidgood, John C.
Dance, James
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Biffen, John
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macolesf'd)


Biggs-Davison, John
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Bingham, R. M.
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Hastings, Stephen


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Doughty, Charles
Hay, John


Bishop, F. P.
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec
Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward


Black, Sir Cyril
Drayson, G. B.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Bossom, Hon. Clive
Duthie, Sir William (Banff)
Hendry, Forbes


Bourne-Arton, A.
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Hicks Beach, Maj. W.


Box, Donald
Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Hiley, Joseph


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Emery, Peter
Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)


Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Errington, Sir Eric
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)


Brewis, John
Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Hirst, Geoffrey


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Farr, John
Hocking, Philip N.


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Fell, Anthony
Holland, Philip


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Fisher, Nigel
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John


Bryan, Paul
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Hopkins, Alan


Bullard, Denys
Forrest, George
Hornby, R. P.


Burden, F. A.
Foster, John
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford &amp; Stone)
Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)


Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)
Freeth, Denzil
Hughes-Young, Michael


Cary, Sir Robert
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Hurd, Sir Anthony


Channon, H. P. G.
Gammans, Lady
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Chataway, Christopher
Gardner, Edward
Iremonger, T. L.


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Gibson-Watt, David
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)
Jackson, John




Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Montgomery, Fergus
Speir, Rupert


Jennings, J. C.
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Stainton, Keith


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Morgan, William
Stanley, Hon. Richard


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Morrison, John
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Neave, Airey
Stodart, J. A.


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Nicholls, Sir Harmer
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Storey, Sir Samuel


Joseph, Pt. Hon. Sir Keith
Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard
Studholme, Sir Henry


Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Summers, Sir Spencer


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)
Talbot, John E.


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Tapseil, Peter


Kershaw, Anthony
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)


Lagden, Godfrey
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Partridge, E.
Teeling, Sir William


Leather, Sir Edwin
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Temple, John M.


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Peel, John
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Percival, Ian
Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)


Lilley, F. J. P.
Peyton, John
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Lindsay, Sir Martin
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Linstead, Sir Hugh
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter


Litchfield, Capt. John
Pitman, Sir James
Thornton-Kemsiey, Sir Colin


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Pitt, Dame Edith
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Pounder, Rafton
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Longbottom, Charles
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Loveys, Walter H.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Turner, Colin


Lubbock, Eric
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Prior, J. M. L.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
van Straubenzee, W. R.


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Vane, W. M. F.


MacArthur, Ian
Pym, Francis
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John


McLaren, Martin
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Vickers, Miss Joan


McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Rawlinson, Sir Peter
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Walder, David


McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)
Walker, Peter


Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thane[...])
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Macleod, Sir J. (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Renton, Rt. Hon. David
Wall, Patrick


McMaster, Stanley R.
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Ward, Dame Irene


Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Ridsdale, Julian
Webster, David


Madden, Martin
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)
Whitelaw, William


Maginnis, John E.
Robson Brown, Sir William
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Maitland, Sir John
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Markham, Major Sir Frank
Roots, William
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Marlowe, Anthony
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Wise, A. R.


Marshall, Sir Douglas
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Marten, Neil
Russell, Ronald
Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard


Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan
Woodhouse, C. M.


Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Scott-Hopkins, James
Woodnutt, Mark


Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)
Seymour, Leslie
Wool[...]am, John


Mawby, Ray
Sharples, Richard
Worsley, Marcus


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Shaw, M.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Shepherd, William



Mille, Stratton
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Miscampbell, Norman
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Mr. Chichester-Clark and




Mr. Finlay




NOES


Abse, Leo
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)


Ainsley, William
Callaghan, James
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)


Albu, Austen
Carmichael, Neil
Evans, Albert


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Fernyhough, E.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Chapman, Donald
Finch, Harold


Bacon, Miss Alice
Cliffs, Michael
Fitch, Alan


Barnett, Guy
Collick, Percy
Fletcher, Eric


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Foley, Maurice


Beaney, Alan
Cronin, John
Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)


Ballenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Crosland, Anthony
Forman, J. C.


Bence, Cyril
Crossman, R. H. S.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)


Benn, Anthony Wedgwood
Dalyell, Tam
Galpern, Sir Myer


Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Darling, George
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)


Benson, Sir George
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Ginsburg, David


Blackburn, F.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.


Blyton, William
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Gourlay, Harry


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Greenwood, Anthony


Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)
Deer, George
Grey, Charles


Bowles, Frank
Delargy, Hugh
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Boyden, James
Diamond, John
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Dodds, Norman
Griffiths, W. (Exchange)


Bradley, Tom
Doig, Peter
Gunter, Ray


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Driberg, Tom
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
Hannan, William


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Edelman, Maurice
Harper, Joseph


Butler, H[...]rbert (Hackney, C.)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hart, Mrs. Judith







Hayman, F. H.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)


Healey, Denis
Mahon, Simon
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Silkin, John


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Manuel, Archie
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Mapp, Charles
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Hilton, A. V.
Marsh, Richard
Slater, Joseph (Sedgsfield)


Holman, Percy
Mason, Roy
Small, William


Houghton, Douglas
Mayhew, Christopher
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Mendelson, J. J.
Snow, Julian


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Millan, Bruce
Sorensen, R. W.


Howie, W.
Milne, Edward
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Hoy, James H.
Mitchison, G. R.
Spriggs, Leslie


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Monslow, Walter
Steele, Thomas


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Moody, A. S.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Morris, Charles (Openshaw)
Storehouse, John


Hunter, A. E.
Morris, John
Stones, William


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Moyle, Arthur
Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Neal, Harold
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Swain, Thomas


Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Swingler, Stephen


Janner, Sir Barnett
O'Malley, B. K.
Symonds, J. B.


Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Oram, A. E.
Taverne, D.


Jeger, George
Oswald, Thomas
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Owen, Will
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Padley, W. E.
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)


Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Pargiter, G. A.
Thornton, Ernest


Jones J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Parker, John
Tomney, Frank


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Parkin, B. T.
Wainwright, Edwin


Kenyon, Clifford
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Warbey, William


King, Dr. Horace
Pearl, Frederick
Weitzman, David


Lawson, George
Pentland, Norman
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Ledger, Ron
Popplewell, Ernest
White, Mrs. Eirene


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Prentice R. E.
Whitlock, William


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Wigg, George


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Probert, Arthur
Wilkins, W. A.


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Proctor, W. T.
Willey, Frederick


Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Lipton, Marcus
Randall, Harry
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Loughlin, Charles
Rankin, John
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Winterbottom, R. E.


McBride, N.
Reid, William
Woof, Robert


McCann, John
Reynolds, G. W.
Wyatt, Woodrow


MacColl, James
Rhodes, H.
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


MacDermot, Niall
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Zilliacus, K.


McInnes, James
Robertson, John (Palsley)



Mackie, John (Enfield, East)
Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Ross, William
Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and




Mr. Redhead

Main Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 225.

Division No. 21.]
AYES
[10.13 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Box, Donald
Costain, A. P.


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Coulson, Michael


Allason, James
Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony


Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian
Brewis, John
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)


Anderson, D. C.
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Crawley, Aidan


Arbuthnot, John
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Critchley, Julian


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Crowder, F. P.


Atkins, Humphrey
Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Cunningham, Sir Knox


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Bryan, Paul
Curran, Charles


Balniel, Lord
Bullard, Denys
Currie, G. B. H.


Barlow, Sir John
Burden, F. A.
Dance, James


Barter, John
Butcher, Sir Herbert
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Batsford, Brian
Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)
Digby, Simon Wingfield


Bell, Ronald
Cary, Sir Robert
Doughty, Charles


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Channon, H. P. G.
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Chataway, Christopher
Drayson, G. B.


Bidgood, John C.
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Duthie, Sir William (Banff)


Biffen, John
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)


Biggs-Davison, John
Cleaver, Leonard
Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)


Bingham, R. M.
Cole, Norman
Emery, Peter


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Cooke, Robert
Errington, Sir Eric


Bishop, F. P.
Cooper, A. E.
Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.


Black, Sir Cyril
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Bossom, Hon. Clive
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Farr, John


Bourne-Arton, A.
Corfieid, F. V.
Fell, Anthony




Fisher, Nigel
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Lilley, F. J. P.
Ridsdale, Julian


Forrest, George
Lindsay, Sir Martin
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)


Foster, John
Linstead, Sir Hugh
Robson Brown, Sir William


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford &amp; Stone)
Litchfield, Capt. John
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'dfield)
Roots, William


Freeth, Denzil
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Longbottom, Charles
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)


Gammons, Lady
Loveys, Walter H.
Russell, Ronald


Gardner, Edward
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan


Gibson-Watt, David
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Scott-Hopkins, James


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Seymour, Leslie


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
MacArthur, Ian
Sharples, Richard


Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
McLaren, Martin
Shaw, M.


Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Shepherd, William


Goodhart, Philip
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute &amp; N. Ayrs)
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)


Goodhew, Victor
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher


Gough, Frederick
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Speir, Rupert


Gower, Raymond
Macleod, Sir J. (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Stainton, Keith


Grant-Ferris, R.
McMaster, Stanley R.
Stanley, Hon. Richard


Green, Alan
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Gresham Cooke, R.
Madden, Martin
Stodart, J. A.


Gurden, Harold
Maginnis, John E.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Maitland, Sir John
Storey, Sir Samuel


Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Studholme, Sir Henry


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Marlowe, Anthony
Summers, Sir Spencer


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Marshall, Sir Douglas
Talbot, John E.


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Marten, Neil
Tapsell, Peter


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Matthews, Gorden (Meriden)
Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)
Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)


Hastings, Stephen
Mawby, Ray
Teeling, Sir William


Hay, John
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Temple, John M.


Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Hendry, Forbes
Mills, Stratton
Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)


Hicks Beach, Maj. W.
Miscampbell, Norman
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Hiley, Joseph
Montgomery, Fergus
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter


Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Morgan, William
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Hirst, Geoffrey
Morrison, John
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Neave, Alrey
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Hocking, Philip N.
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Holland, Philip
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Turner, Colin


Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard
Turton, Rt. Hon. R.


Hopkins, Alan
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Hornby, R. P.
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Vane, W. M. F.


Howard, Hon. C. R. (St. Ives)
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Vickers, Miss Joan


Hughes-Young, Michael
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Vesper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Hurd, Sir Anthony
Partridge, E.
Welder, David


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Walker, Peter


Iremonger, T. L.
Peel, John
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Percival, Ian
Walt, Patrick


Jackson, John
Peyton, John
Ward, Dame Irene


James, David
Pickthom, Sir Kenneth
Webster, David


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Whitelaw, William


Jennings, J. C.
Pitman, Sir James
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Pitt, Dame Edith
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Pounder, Rafton
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Wise, A. R.


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Priers, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard


Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith
Prior, J. M. L.
Woodhouse, C. M.


Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Woodnutt, Mark


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Woollam, John


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Pym, Francis
Worsley, Marcus


Kershaw, Anthony
Quenne[...] Miss J. M.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Lagden, Godfrey
Rawlinson, Sir Peter



Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)
Mr. Chichester-Clark and


Leather, Sir Edwin
Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thanet)
Mr. Finlay.


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Renton, Rt. Hon. David





NOES


Abse, Leo
Beaney, Alan
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.


Ainsley, William
Ballenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)


Albu, Austen
Bence, Cyril
Bowles, Frank


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Bonn, Anthony Wedgwood
Boyden, James


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Benson, Sir George
Bradley, Tom


Barnett, Guy
Blackburn, F.
Bray, Dr. Jeremy


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Blyton, William
Brockway, A. Fenner







Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Hoy, James H.
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Peart, Frederick


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hughes, Emrys (S, Ayrshire)
Pentland, Norman


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Popplewell, Ernest


Callaghan, James
Hunter, A. E.
Prentice, R. E.


Carmichael, Neil
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Probert, Arthur


Chapman, Donald
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Proctor, W. T.


Cliffe, Michael
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry


Collick, Percy
Janner, Sir Barnett
Randall, Harry


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Rankin, John


Cronin, John
Jeger, George
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Crosland, Anthony
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Reid, William


Crossman, R. H. S.
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Reynolds, G. W.


Dalyell, Tam
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Rhodes, H.


Darling, George
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Jones J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kenyon, Clifford
Ross, William


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
King, Dr. Horace
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)


Deer, George
Lawson, George
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Delargy, Hugh
Ledger, Ron
Silkin, John


Diamond, John
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Dodds, Norman
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Doig, Peter
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Driberg, Tom
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Small, William


Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
Lipton, Marcus
Smith, Ellis (Stoke S.)


Edelman, Maurice
Loughlin, Charles
Snow, Julian


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Sorensen, R. W.


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
McBride, N.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
McCann, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Evans, Albert
MacColl, James
Steele, Thomas


Fernyhough, E.
MacDermot, Niall
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Finch, Harold
McInnes, James
Stonehouse, John


Fitch, Alan
Mackie, John (Enfield, East)
Stones, William


Fletcher, Eric
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Foley, Maurice
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)
Mahon, Simon
Swain, Thomas


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Swingler, Stephen


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Symonds, J. B.


George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)
Manuel, Archie
Taverne, D.


Ginsburg, David
Mapp, Charles
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Marsh, Richard
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Gourlay, Harry
Mason, Roy
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Greenwood, Anthony
Mayhew, Christopher
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)


Grey, Charles
Mendelson, J. J.
Thornton, Ernest


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Millan, Bruce
Tomney, Frank


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Milne, Edward
Wainwright, Edwin


Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Mitchison, G. R.
Warbey, William


Gunter, Ray
Monslow, Walter
Weitzman, David


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Moody, A. S.
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Morris, Charles (Openshaw)
White, Mrs. Eirene


Hannan, William
Morris, John
Whitlock, William


Harper, Joseph
Moyle, Arthur
Wigg, George


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Neal, Harold
Wilkins, W. A.


Hayman, F. H.
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Willey, Frederick


Healey, Denis
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (RwlyRegis)
O'Malley, B. K.
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Oram, A. E.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Oswald, Thomas
Winterbottom, R. E.


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Owen Will
Woof, Robert


Hilton, A. V.
Padley, W. E.
Wyatt, Woodrow


Holman, Percy
Paget, R. T.
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Houghton, Douglas
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Zilliacus, K.


Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Pargiter, G. A.



Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Parker, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Howie, W. (Luton)
Parkin, B. T.
Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and




Mr. Redhead.

Resolved,
That this House approves the action taken by Her Majesty's Government to promote the development of the Commonwealth through the provision of technical assistance and development aid on an increasing scale, and strengthening of educational and cultural links, and the pursuit, in co-operation with other Common

wealth countries, of the policies for expanding trade endorsed at the meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council in May 1963, and welcomes the intention of Her Majesty's Government to press forward vigorously with these and other measures to reinforce the bonds between the Governments and peoples of the Commonwealth.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to place the public library service provided by local authorities in England and Wales under the superintendence of the Minister of Education and to make new provision for regulating and improving that service and as to the provision and maintenance of museums and art galleries by such authorities, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) grants made under the Act to any body which makes available to authorities constituted library authorities by the Act any facilities likely to assist them in the discharge of their duties;
(b) administrative expenses incurred by the Minister of Education for the purposes of the Act;
(c) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or

Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland.

Resolutions agreed to.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision concerning the undertaking by a trustee savings bank of a service comprising the operation of current accounts for depositors of money at the bank, it is expedient to authorise—

(i) the charge on the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to the said Act in the sums payable out of the Consolidated Fund under section 36 of the Trustee Savings Banks Act 1954;
(ii) the payment into the Exchequer of any increase so attributable in the sums payable into the Exchequer under the said section 36.

Resolution agreed to.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC SCHEME, LAIDON (INQUIRY)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—[Mr. MacArthur.]

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Milan: I am very glad to have this opportunity of raising the question of the public inquiry into the Laidon Hydro-Electric Scheme in Perthshire. This is quite a small scheme in connection with the existing Tummel Garry scheme in Perthshire, a scheme of only 5 megawatts and costing a comparatively small amount of money, I think £1½ million.
The main point I raise is why there is an inquiry into this scheme at all, because, for the first time since the Act dealing with hydro-electric schemes, there is an inquiry into a scheme to which there are no objections at all. There was an objection from Aims of Industry, but that was withdrawn and there are now no objections. Yet the Secretary of State for Scotland has ordered a public inquiry into the scheme by adding the Laidon scheme to the Fada-Fionn scheme which is going on in Wester Ross, which is not physically or in any other way connected with the Laidon scheme.
When I asked why he had ordered an inquiry, the right hon. Gentleman said that he had done so to see whether the Laidon scheme was economically justifiable. This is a completely new departure. There have been public inquiries in the past, but they have dealt with amenity aspects of hydro-electric schemes. No one questions that there is a public interest in amenity and therefore it is perfectly appropriate that there should be procedure for public inquiry into a projected hydro-electric scheme from the amenity point of view, even though in some cases in the past objectors on amenity grounds have not had genuine objections but have simply been landlords and lairds wishing to protect selfish vested interests as against the interests of Highland electricity development.
I admit that there should be procedure for amenity objections to be heard but

there is a tremendous difference between that and an objection on the grounds of the economics of a scheme. This is something which in the past has been taken to be a matter to be decided by the Secretary of State. Even after the present inquiry the Secretary of State will still have to make the decision. I want to know why the Secretary of State has tried to avoid his responsibility in regard to the Laidon scheme and in regard to the economics of the Fada-Fionn scheme by putting this on to the shoulders of a public inquiry. The whole question of the economics of different forms of electricity generation is of such complexity and involves so many complicated technical factors that it is just the kind of consideration which is not appropriate to a public inquiry.
Anyone who has read the Report of the Mackenzie Committee, part of whose work was this very question of the economics of different forms of electricity generation, knows that this is an extremely complicated question and not something which can be decided at a public inquiry. The present inquiry has been based on this question of economics, but it is not an appropriate body to decide on the economics of hydroelectricity or any other kind of electricity development. It is the more inappropriate way to have this inquiry into the Laidon scheme because not only did the Mackenzie Committee which took 18 months to do so go into the economics of different forms of electricity generation, but it specifically dealt with the economics of the Laidon scheme in one of the appendices of the Report and came to the conclusion on the tests laid down by the Committee that the Laidon scheme was economically justifiable. Despite that, we have the Secretary of State ordering a public inquiry.
If it is to be the Secretary of State's future policy to have a public inquiry into the economics of every hydroelectric scheme however small the scheme may be—and the Laidon scheme is very small, indeed—he will kill hydroelectricity development. The present inquiry has already sat for 10 days, and it has fixed dates for six further sittings this month and in March. I understand that there is no guarantee that even after 16 days it will have come to a conclusion


about either the Fada-Fionn or the Laidon scheme. Even after 10 days, the inquiry has not got to the Laidon scheme.
There could in future be similar lengthy inquiries and delays with every hydro-electric scheme. Some of the objectors to the Fada-Fionn scheme are very rich men indeed. Colonel Whitbread and Major Reginald Macdonald-Buchanan are not just prosperous men, but are extremely rich. If the Secretary of State establishes as a principle that there should be a public inquiry into every hydro-electric scheme, any individual—Colonel Whitbread or any other person—who can afford to employ a lawyer to put a case will be able completely to frustrate our hydro-electricity development. Many of us, and many people in the Highlands, suspect that that is precisely what the Secretary of State intends to do—completely to prevent any further hydro-electricity development.
It is worth pointing out that this elaborate public inquiry, meeting for over 16 days, has called evidence from the Hydro Board and from fishery and salmon interests, and the rest, and still has to hear evidence from the South of Scotland Electricity Board and from the National Coal Board, but this complicated system does not apply to other electricity development. For example, a 2,400 megawatt coal-fired electricity station is to be built in the South of Scotland, and will cost £100 million. There has been no public inquiry, and there will be no public inquiry there. There is no inquiry into the economics of that scheme—whether it should be fuelled by coal, electricity, or something else. I do not object in any way to that new scheme, because it is coal-fired, as it should be. I merely point out that a £100 million scheme can go through without public inquiry at all, yet this Laidon scheme, which will cost only £1½ million, has to be subjected to this elaborate procedure.
Why are we having this inquiry at all into the Laidon scheme, when there are no objections, and why are we to have an inquiry into the economics as distinct from the amenity point of view of the Fada-Fionn scheme? I think I can give the Under-Secretary the answer. The Secretary of State, for reasons which, presumably, appear good to him

but which are a mystery to the rest of us, seems determined to stop hydroelectricity development.
This is not something new. There has been a complete standstill on new hydroelectricity development since the Mackenzie Committee was established in March, 1961. It reported about 18 months later. There was another delay of another nine months while the Secretary of State made up his mind about the Committee's recommendations. In the summer of last year, the Secretary of State had to reject the Committee's main recommendation that there should be a merger of the North of Scotland Hydro Board and the South of Scotland Electricity Board. It is well known, I think, that he had hoped to announce acceptance of that recommendation, and only changed his mind because of the tremendous force of public opinion against him. He could not go ahead with it.
If the merger has been turned down, it is still true that the Secretary of State has done everything possible to frustrate hydro-electricity development. Over the years, up to 1962 from 1948, there was an average of about 5,000 men employed on hydro-electricity development in the Highlands and that is a lot of labour to employ, when we consider the serious Highland unemployment situation. What is the figure now? I do not think it is much more than 1,000. Of course, if this continued delay goes on, if the standstill continues on hydroelectricity development, then the labour employed in hydro-electricity development will come to a complete halt, with particular serious consequences on the labour situation in the north of Scotland.
There has been an attempt by the Government to pretend that of course they were not holding up electricity development and that it was something which remained in the initiative of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. This was the kind of line the Prime Minister took during his election campaign in Kinross, but the Prime Minister, in this as in so many other things, just did not know what he was talking about; he knew nothing about hydro-electricity development. As the Scotsman said in a leading article at that time, on 30th October,
The honest way would be for the Government to acknowledge their responsibility and give their reasons for the delay instead of


making it appear to be the fault of the board whose activities they have hamstrung since the Mackenzie Committee was appointed as long ago as March, 1961.
I think that is a very fair estimate.
To add to the frustration, to add to the difficulties of the Hydro-Electric Board, to make it even more difficult for the Board, we have something new again in this present inquiry. The Mackenzie Committee was meant to give a definitive assessment of the economics of different forms of electricity generation, and there was no sign that the Secretary of State did not accept that part of the Mackenzie Report which dealt with the economics of electricity generation. When the Laidon inquiry started and the Fada Fionn inquiry started we had something new, a memorandum of guidance on the economic issues, given by the Secretary of State to the economists conducting the public inquiry, and this introduced a new element into the situation, the element being that the Hydro-Electric Board would have to show in the future that its schemes of hydro-electricity development would give a net return on the capital expenditure of 8 per cent. per annum.
I have not the time to go into the intricacies of this at the moment. All I am going to say is that it was a muddled document. It was so muddled in fact that there had to be a second memorandum three days later explaining what the first memorandum meant. There are in the second memorandum elementary errors which any second-year accountancy student could point out to the Secretary of State. The fact is that it is not a genuine attempt to get a genuine assessment of the economics of different forms of electricity generation. This is simply one more attempt to strangle the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, because the fact is of the different kinds of electricity generation hydro-electricity is of course capital-intensive. The Mackenzie Committee pointed out that 94 per cent. of revenue costs of hydro-electricity were made up of investment and depredation on the capital employed. Of course, if one raises the percentage on capital return of the electricity boards one inevitably weighs the scales against hydro-electricity development, because it is, as I say, capital, intensive as compared

with, say, oil or coal-fired generation.
As I say, I have not time to go into the details of this, but the fact is that this memorandum is I think deliberately designed to make hydro-electricity appear to be uneconomic, and it is not uneconomic, on the Mackenzie tests, or on the test of the Hydro-Electric Board over the years. In fact compared with the South of Scotland Electricity Board in terms of earned surplus in 1962, the last year for which figures are available, and the accumulated surplus earned by the Hydro-Electric Board, that board has been more successful than the South of Scotland Board. Again, if one takes the profit earned not on capital employed but on turnover, which is a perfectly legitimate way of doing it, certainly as legitimate as doing it on the capital employed, the North of Scotland Board has been a more successful board than the South of Scotland Board.
If the assessment is based on capital employed, one is not comparing like with like. There is no real comparison between hydro-electricity on the one hand and electricity produced by coal and oil-fired generating stations on the other. This criterion is simply a way of weighting the balance against the Hydro-Electric Board. This whole memorandum was accurately described by Mr. Michael Grieve in two excellent articles in the Daily Express, and I pay every tribute to them, as "the 8 per cent. plot." That is a very accurate way of describing it. It is a plot against the Hydro-Electric Board.
The Government must make up their minds about this. Will they give the Board the capital it requires to continue to develop hydro-electricity in the North of Scotland? We want a frank answer. We do not want a memorandum given to public inquiries. We do not want inquiries into the economics of different electricity schemes. We have had the Mackenzie Report. An economic assessment is something which should be done by the Scottish Office. If it has not the competence to do it—and I doubt whether it has—it should ask the Central Electricity Generating Board which has the competence. It is the Government who have to take the decision about this. It is not something that can be put out to a public inquiry.
We have the same thing happening with hydro-electricity as we have with forestry. They are the two hopeful features in the Highland scene at the moment, but there must be willingness to spend large sums on capital expenditure in the certainty—not the hope—that it will pay off handsomely in the future. It will pay off in forestry, which the Government have also neglected, and in hydro-electricity.
If they are to be judged by their actions in this matter, the Government apparently have written off the Highlands of Scotland. If the Secretary of State for Scotland had the courage and the guts to say, "I am going to stop hydroelectric development; it is too expensive; it means too much in the way of capital expenditure and we shall do something else in the Highlands", we could disagree with him but at least we could respect his honesty, but he has not done that. He has frustrated the efforts of the Board and demoralised the staff by putting every difficulty in their way. The behaviour of the Secretary of State in this has been utterly contemptible.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: It is regrettable that the Secretary of State for Scotland, whose honour is considerably at stake, has not seen fit to attend the debate. We have had over the past three years a saga of deliberate and calculated obstruction, at every stage, of the projects of the Hydro-Electric Board.
I do not want to say any more about the Prime Minister's ignorance. I am more concerned with the blundering and ill-concealed hatred of the Secretary of State against hydro-electric development, and I pay tribute to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), who has so actively pursued this subject. We had the Mackenzie Report and after that a long delay while the Secretary of State made up his mind about it. Then we had the reference to the specialists and we had the boards being told to work things out together. Eventually, after a long time, we had, unprecedentedly, an inquiry though there were no objections. This has applied in two cases in Scotland. One thing which the Highlanders value is the railways. Now there is an inquiry at which the passengers are not to be allowed to be heard. Here

again, there is something else which the Highlanders want and an inquiry is set up when there are no objections. Even the deer-stalkers of the Highlands have withdrawn. The way things have gone has been absolutely disgraceful and after all that has been said the scheme has not been allowed to proceed.
Everyone else seems to know exactly what the Mackenzie Committee decided and, despite, everything the Secretary of State says, that Committee discussed capital costs in a way which was to the disadvantage of the Hydro-Electric Board. It did not take into account the fact that, after allowing for the amortisation, the hydro schemes still had a life of 20 years, which considerably reduced the capital costs, and since that time the rate of interest on which the Committee based its calculations has fallen.
This is disgraceful and I hope that the Under-Secretary will give some indication that he is at least concerned about the situation. He must know how his constituents feel about it and that the effect on Highland employment has been disastrous and that something which meant employment not for one or two thousand but for a considerable number of thousands of people has been whittled away. This has been the one institution in the Highlands which has worked, a nationalised industry which has become respected as no other institution in the Highlands has, and which is being killed and deliberately killed by the Government. Why?

10.46 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gordon Campbell): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) for giving me this opportunity of explaining more fully than is possible at Question Time the reasons why my right hon. Friend has asked those who are conducting the present inquiry into the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board's Fada-Fionn scheme to report to him also on the Board's Laidon scheme.
First, I should like to say a word about the statutory position governing hydro-electric schemes. Under Section 5 of the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Act, 1943, as amended, when a Board submits a scheme to the Secretary of State for confirmation it is required to advertise it in the Press.


The Secretary of State's consent cannot be given until there has been an opportunity of lodging objections. If an objector asks for a public inquiry, there must be one; otherwise a public inquiry may be held at the Secretary of State's discretion.
However, whether there have been objections to a scheme or not, and irrespective of whether a scheme has been the subject of a public inquiry, the Secretary of State can present an Order to Parliament confirming a hydro-electric scheme only if in his opinion it is in the public interest that the scheme be carried out.

Sir John MacLeod: It does not say anywhere in the 1943 Act that a public inquiry is asked for on economic grounds.

Mr. Campbell: The position is that the Secretary of State can confirm a scheme only if in his opinion it is in the public interest that the scheme should be carried out and that covers the economic as well as the other aspects. In this matter, therefore, there is a clear statutory obligation upon him to be satisfied where the public interest lies.
It has been suggested that my right hon. Friend has sufficient information available to him now to enable him to take a decision on the Laidon scheme without referring it to public inquiry; and in this connection the economic tests which were laid down in the Mackenzie Report have been referred to. I have two comments to make on this. The Mackenzie Report laid down for the first time principles on which comparisons of production costs could be made between different methods of generating electricity in Scotland; and the Committee illustrated these by applying them to the two hydro-electric schemes which were then before the Secretary of State. These, as hon. Members are aware, were the schemes the Board wished to develop in Glen Nevis and at Loch Laidon.
In both cases the reports showed that, assuming that no greater return on capital was appropriate than the Exchequer lending rate of 6 per cent. current at the time, electricity could be provided more cheaply from these schemes than from the best thermal

alternative that the Committee considered was then available.
But two other factors have to be taken into account which could significantly affect the economics of the Laidon scheme. In the first place, new generating stations, which the Committee could not take account of in its calculations, are now under construction or in contemplation and it may be that these offer a cheaper alternative source of power.
The Committee illustrated its method of cost comparison by selecting as the best alternative thermal source of power the 240 megawatts of capacity which the North Board is bringing into commission at Dundee in 1965 and 1966. Since then, as hon. Members are aware, my right hon. Friend has approved the construction of a coal-fired station in West Fife which will have an installed capacity of 2,400 megawatts—exactly ten times the capacity of the Dundee project. Further, as the Mackenzie Committee recommended, the North Board has examined the possibilities of the Dundee site and has come to the conclusion that it would be possible for it to accommodate a further 600 megawatts of capacity. In the electricity supply industry considerable economies can be gained through the installation of large blocks of generating capacity at the one site, while technical advances and metallurgical techniques have led to greater efficiency in the use of fuel.
I do not wish to suggest that these technical advances have occurred only with thermal stations and that there has been no improvement in the design or efficiency of water turbines for hydro-electric purposes or that there has been no progress in civil engineering methods. What cannot be disputed, however, is that changes have taken place since the Mackenzie Report was published and it is only right that these should be evaluated. The second factor is that of return on capital. As the Committee said in paragraph 86 of its Report, it did not regard it as its task to judge on what terms capital should be offered to finance electricity projects. This question of the rate of return on capital has an important bearing on the economics of a hydro-electric scheme.
My right hon. Friend has already made it clear to the House that, before he can sanction a scheme, he must be


satisfied both that the scheme would produce electricity as cheaply to the consumer as it could be supplied from an alternative generating station and that it would represent a proper use of the substantial amount of extra capital which hydro schemes require.
In view of the increasing demand for public investment in a variety of fields it is important to ensure that the nation's capital resources are used to the maximum benefit. Where money has to be spent on bringing electricity to the consumer there is a choice of ways of doing it. Either money can be invested in providing new generating capacity by water power, or the electricity can be supplied by transmitting it from one of the modern thermal stations which are being built elsewhere in the country. In this connection, it is necessary to be sure that an adequate return could be obtained from the capital that would be tied up in a hydro scheme and this is a particular aspect of the Laidon scheme on which my right hon. Friend wishes to have an independent assessment.
To help those who are conducting the inquiry, my right hon. Friend has, therefore, issued memoranda of reference on this aspect of the matter indicating the rate of return which the Government consider that major new investment in the electricity supply industry should earn. As hon. Members are aware, the terms of these memoranda have already been made public and I should draw attention to the last paragraph of the principal memorandum, which makes it quite clear that other factors, as well as the question of the return on capital, will be taken into account in reaching a decision. The fact that all outstanding objections to the scheme have now been withdrawn is not therefore really relevant to the question of whether or not this scheme should have been referred to a public inquiry.
Without going into details of the scheme, which can more properly be brought out at the inquiry itself, I have tried to show that hydro-electric schemes, like those proposed at Laidon and Fada-Fionn, raise important issues of public interest on which a decision cannot be reached without a full assessment of comparative costs. Indeed, I find it difficult to follow the objections the hon. Member has raised against the procedure which has been adopted.
There is no intention here of attempting to prevent a desirable development from taking place. It is simply a matter of trying to make sure where the public interest in fact lies and of finding out the facts about what the most economic methods of providing power are. In this context any suggestion of bias is quite misplaced. I cannot understand why those who have criticised my right hon. Friend's actions should object to his seeking to ascertain the facts.
It has been said that it is bound to cause confusion to introduce evidence about different hydro-electricity schemes. This I cannot accept. My information is that these two schemes are being considered consecutively and that evidence of the Laidon scheme will not be heard until all the submissions in respect of the Fada-Fionn scheme have been completed. It has been implied by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton that there is some plot whereby the Government are seeking to frustrate the Hydro-Electricity Board's proposal.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for, half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at five minutes to Eleven o'clock.